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►

l^arbarl) College l,itirar5

LIBRARY OF THE

Historical Department

T^^

SFERRED

COLLEGE
RARY

BOOK^EOERS^'.STAIIONERS

26 8.28TREM0NTSTJ,
30 COURT gCBOSTOW.

tm ,, f I ,r

wttwt

FATHER MARQUETTE

REPUTED PORTRAIT OF MARQUETTE.
(From oil portrait by unknown artist, discovered in Montreal in 1897.)

^sttftt iWaripiftte

REUBEN GOLD THWATTES

Secretaiy and Superintendent of the State Historical

Soci^<tf Wisconsin; Editor of The Jesuit

delations and Allied Documents

Author of The Colonies

Etc., Etc.

Illustrated

New York

1910

TiritMF[R«I» T»

<i<x^ "8-12. . ^»S """*"• **^"" ""*"

/i V o ^.

' r -^rM

^j')?!*fir^nt^

Ck»rvBi«R, ItM
Ir D. APPUBTON AMD CKHEPAKT

^^IViHAMI irtWIOf M^9w

THIS STORT OF AN AMERICAN HERO

18 BK8PKOTFUI.I.T DKDIOATKD
TO

Thx Bt. Rkt. S. O. MESSMEB, D.D.

KflHOP OF GBSBV BAT

BY HIS ADMIRING FRIKND

THK AUTHOR

PREFACE

Father Jacques Marquette, of the
Society of Jesns, arrived in Canada, from
France, in 1666, when the Jesuit missions
of New France were approaching their full
tide of success, but had only recently entered
upon the vast, ill-defined region beyond Lake
Huron. Although but twenty-nine years of
age, he had already won some notice as a
lecturer in the Jesuit schools of his native
land. Beared to luxury in what was per-
haps the principal family in the cathedral
city of Laon, in his seventeenth year he put
behind him the traditions of his ancient
house, which marked its sons for statesman-
ship and for war, and surrendered himself
to the service of the Cross. In response to
his yearning for a missionary career, he was
in due time sent by his superior to join the
devoted band then engaged in taming the
savages of the American wilderness,
vii

Father Marquette

Soon acquiring the mdiments of this
most ardnons of professions, Marquette was
despatched to the farthest outposts of French
influence — to Snult de Ste. Marie, and next
to Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior ; final-
ly, when his flock of Hurons and Ottawas had
been driven eastward by their Sioux neigh-
bors, rearing his little chapel of bark upon
the lonely straits of Mackinac.

Upon the seventeenth of May, 1673, he
set out in company with Louis Joliet, an
exploring agent of Count Frontenac, gov-
ernor of New France, to discover the Mis-
sissippi Biver, the principal American geo-
graphical puzzle of the day, which both
Joliet and Marquette had long desired to
6olve. In their two frail canoes of birch-
bark, with five French servants, the explor-
ers entered the great river, at the mouth of
the Wisconsin, upon the seventeenth of June,
and descended, with many interesting ad-
ventures, as far south as the mouth of the
Arkansas River. Learning from the In-
dians the course and characteristics of the
waterway from that i)oint to the Gulf of
Mexico, they returned northward, by way of
viii

Preface

tbe niixiois And €!liicago Bivers and the west
shore of Lake Miehigan, reaching the Jesuit
mission at the rapids of De Pere, Wis., in
September.

After a winter at De Pere, Joliet returned
to QueBec by canoe, but lost his crew and
all his papers in the rapids at La Chine.
But Marquette's journal and map of the
voyage were safely transmitted to his supe-
rior-general at Quebec by the hands of In-
dians; they were the only detailed records
of the expedition which have been ever pub-
lished.

Overcome by a malady contracted
through exposure and hardship upon the
long voyage, it was not until October of 1674
that Marquette could leave De Pere and re-
turn by boat to Blinois, where he desired
to found a new mission. After a cold,
dreary journey up the west coast of Lake
Michigan, he was obliged, because of ill-
health, to pass the winter with two servants
in a wretched cabin upon the Chicago Biver.
In the early spring he was able to proceed
to some Indian villages upon the Blinois
Biver, but j90on was obliged by his ailment

Father Marquette

to return, this time intending to reach his
old mission of St. Ignace, on the Mackinac
straits. Death overtook him while still two
hundred and fifty miles from his destination;
he passed away on the eighteenth of May,
1675, upon the site of the present city of
Ludington, Mich. The following year, some
friendly Indians removed his bones to St.
Ignace, where they were buried by his breth-
ren of the society in a vault beneath the
chapel floor.

Such, in outline, is the brief, simple trag-
edy of one of the most interesting characters
in American history. Father Marquette was
great as an explorer, as a tamer of savages,
as a preacher; and he has left to us, in the
journals of his voyages of 1673 and 1674-75,
two keenly interesting human documents.
But still greater was he in his saintly char-
acter, which was ever an inspiration to his
fellow laborers in the wilderness, and can
but always command the cordial admiration
of mankind.

The principal life-work of Father Mar-
quette was within the boundaries of what is
now the United States ; and herein his bones

Preface

lie. We may, therefore, properly claiiii him
as an American hero, intimately associated
with the history of the Mississippi Valley.
Other biographies of Marquette exist — nota-
bly those by Sparks and by Shea ; but they
are brief, and much has since been learned
about the Jesuit missions and missionaries
of the Northwest. It is now possible to treat
of him with more knowledge, consequently
at greater length. Slight space has here
been given to the story of his ancestry, or
of his early years in France. This is left
for others, when more is known concerning
them than is now available. It is sufficient
for the present purpose to lay chief stress
upon his work in the Western wilderness.

Whenever practicable, the present writer
has drawn freely upon the annual Relations
of the Jesuits, and upon Marquette's own
journals, all of which have been made read-
ily accessible thi*ough recent publication, in
seventy-three volumes, by the Burrows
Brothers Company, of Cleveland. It has
thus been sought to convey a picture of the
conditions surrounding our hero, delineated
in large measure by himself and his contem-

Father Marquette

poraries; thereby admitting the reader to a
more intimate view than would otherwise be
possible. To the Burrows Brothers Com-
pany grateful acknowledgments are due for
courteous permission to make liberal ex-
tracts from their edition; also for the use
herein of several of its illustrations. Thanks
are also due to the Hon. Sam S. Fifield, of
Ashland, and Arthur C. Neville, Esq., of
Oreen Bay, Wis., for topographical in-
formation concerning their respective local-
ities.

E. G. T.

April, 190t.

Xil

CONTENTS

OKAPm

PAH

P&IFACB

Yii

Laon and the Mabquittbs . . • .

11.

Thb TKAiNnre of ▲ Man of Aonoir

III.

Abkiyal in Canada

IV.

Two Teabs of Appbbnticbship

. 27

Thb Indians and the Missions

. 88

VI.

Abbiyal at the Ottawa Mission .

. 48

VII.

The Sault and its People .

. 68

vni

At La Pointe Mission ....

. 87

Lake Supebiob Abandoned .

. 84

Abbiyal at Mackinac ....

. 100

XI.

A Stbbnuous Life . . . . ^

. 110

XII.

JOLIET ABBIYES AT MaCKINAC .

. 122

XTTT.

The Expedition Stabts ....

. 187

XIV.

Abbiyal at Be Pebb ....

. 145

XV.

The Mission of St. Fban^is Xayibb .

. 156

XVI.

At the Masooitten Villaoe .

. 170

XVII.

DiSCOYEBT OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

. 182

xvm

The Ltmit of the Joubnet .

, 190

XTX.

A WiNTEB AT St. FBAN901S Xayieb

. 205

XX.

Belief in Death

. 217

XXI.

Mabqubtte's Place in Histobt .

. 228

Index

. 285

...
ZIII

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Reputed portrait of Marquette .WonMqvisee

"Jesuit map of Lake Superior, 1670-71 .... 70

Collet and Marquette departing from St. Ignace . . 144

ICombined bronze sun-dial and compass . . . 168

Terrot's ostensorium, 1686 168

"^Entering the Wisconsin Biver at Portage . . . 186

'tTunction of the Wisconsin and Mississippi . • . 190

"TThe Meeting with the Illinois 194

"Attacked by the Mitchigamea 200

•Marquette's MS. map, 1673 • 212

"A page of Marquette's Journal, 1674-75 . . .218

"Marquette's journey across the site of Chicago . . 220

'The death of Marquette 226

'Burial of Marquette at St. Ignace . . • . 228

'Trentanove's statue of Marquette 280

FATHER MARQUETTE

CHAPTER I

LAON AND THE MARQUBTTES

Eighty-seven miles by rail northeast of
Paris, a long, rugged hill, some three hundred
feet high, stands alone in the midst of a wide,
rich plain upon which gardens, vineyards,
orchards, groups of forest trees, and small
white villages pleasantly alternate. Perched
upon this rocky eminence is the ancient forti-
fied city of Laon, now capital of the depart-
ment of the Aisne, girt about by massive gray
walls. To-day can be seen in Laon the re-
mains of buildings erected nearly fifteen cen-
turies ago, which, if gifted with speech, might
testify as eye-witnesses to some of the most
stirring scenes in the troubled history of
France.

The commanding position of the "Eock
of Laon " early caused it to be selected as a
place of defense. The Romans found here a
» 1

Father Marquette

considerable settlement of skin-dressed shep-
herds, gathered as in a tower of refuge from
the raids of robber bands who terrorized the
plain. The Christian faith had been brought
to Laon in the third century, and in the year
515 Saint Bemy, the ^^ Apostle to the Franks/'
built here a rude cathedral. The French
kings of the first and second dynasties made
of this hill-crest a stronghold. Under Louis
V it was the last possession of the Carlovin-
gian, or second, dynasty; the foundations of
his great castle can still be seen. The Bock
having at last become a center of power
for oppressors, instead of a refuge for the
oppressed, the commoners of Laon became
turbulent Through several centuries they
waged a rough struggle with their masters,
and were one of the first communities in
northern France to throw off the fetters of
feudalism.

Laon has been associated in some man-
ner, directly or indirectly, with nearly all of
the epoch-making incidents in the history of
France. Long situated upon the frontier, it
served as a rampart against eastern enemies ;
and many a conflict occurred within its walls

Laon and the Marquettes

when warring kings, nobles, and townsmen
contended for its possession. Many times
has Laon been besieged, although seldom cap-
tured. John the Fearless, Duke of Burgun-
dy, stormed it successfully in 1411; eight
years later the English triumphantly entered
within its gates, but ten years afterward they
were driven out In 1594 it was taken by
siege under Henry IV; beneath its walls, in
1814, Bonaparte met a crushing dief eat at the
hands of Bltlcher; and in 1870 it capitulated
to the Germans.

Early in the twelfth century, during times
of great popular commotion, the Church of
Rome strengthened its power here by build-
ing a fine new Gothic cathedral, which still
stands as one of the most imposing historical
monuments in France. Another interesting
edifice is the collegiate church of Saint Mar-
tin, built in the thirteenth century; but the
once celebrated abbeys of Saint Martin and
Saint Vincent, long famed throughout Eu-
rope as seats of scholarship, have passed
away. There are in Laon, also, the ruins of
a remarkable leaning tower, of unknown age,
like those of Bologna and Pisa. The old

Father Marquette

wall, flanked with small towers and pierced
by a Gothic gate, alone remains of the former
defenses, which had so often withstood the
raging tide of medieval warfare.

Although most frequently mentioned in
history as a fortress, the Laon of the middle
ages was perhaps best known to men of that
day as a center of learning and piety. From
the time of Saint Bemy to the outbreak of the
French Revolution, eighty-seven bishops had
ruled over the diocese; four of them were,
after their deaths, canonized as saints — Gene-
baud, Latro, Canoald, and Serulphe. Three
popes came from Laon. The most famous of
them, Urban IV, had as a boy been a chorister
in the cathedral; and when the citizens of
Laon, who had helped to educate him, sent to
Urban an address of congratulation upon his
accession to the headship of the church, he
said of the congregation of his old town: " it
has cherished me as a mother, has fed me as a
nurse, has protected me as a teacher, has en-
riched me as a benefactor.^' Laon's school
was for centuries one of the most famous in
Europe. Its greatest master was Anselm,
who in the middle of the twelfth century at-

Laon and the Marquettes

tracted to his lecture-room so many scholars
that they exceeded in nimibers the inhabit-
ants of the little city itself. Among these
scholars were some of the best-known men in
Europe, such as Ab^lard and William of
Champeaux.

Prominent among the citizens of this cele-
brated old hill-town of Laon, with its splen-
did heritage of good, brave, and learned men,
were the family of the Marquettes. Not
themselves titled, they nevertheless were
throughout many generations allied to the
nobility by marriage^ and were among the
townsmen who persistently ranged them-
selves under the banners of the kings. Sev-
eral of them attained high station in the
service of their masters.

Vermand Marquette, a follower of the
blundering Louis-le-Jeune (1137-80), is the
first who is mentioned in the history of the
town. His son Jacques followed John of
France into captivity (1356), and four years
later was largely instrumental in raising
money to ransom the king from the English ;
he was rewarded by being made sheriff of
Laon, then a position of much dignity and

Father Marquette

power. Three centuries later (1698), royal
recognition of this act resulted in the Mar-
quettes being permitted to place upon their
coat-of-arms the three martlets carried upon
the insignia of the city itself. So persistent
had been the traditions of the family in the
support of royalty that, when the city of Laon
became a member of the Roman Catholic
League against Henry IV (1589-1610), Nico-
las Marquette, the father of the subject of
our biography, and then a civic magistrate
of eminence, stood as the friend of the king,
and was consequently banished from his na-
tive town. In due time, when Henry's cause
proved triumphant, Nicolas was richly re-
warded for his loyalty. Nearly two hundred
years after this event, three members of the
Marquette family, serving in the French
army which supported the American Revo-
lution, lost their lives upon our soil in behalf
of the liberty of the citizen as against the
arrogance of the crown ; a fourth, Marquette
Plumaison, after having served under Wash-
ington, returned to Laon and died there in
1811. Another Marquette was a member of
the upper house of the Parliament of Paris,

Laon and the Marquettes

at the outbreak of the French Bevolution.
Descendants of these men still live in the old
town.

The Marquettes of Laon were distin-
guished not only in political and judicial life.
Besides the great missionary whose romantic
cai*eer we are to trace upon these pages, at
least two of its members have won permanent
places in the history of the Roman Church.
A forefather of his mother — Rose de la Salle,
of Reims, who died before 1710 — ^was the no-
ted Jean Baptiste de la Salle, founder of the
Order of Brothers of the Christian Schools,
who, before modem systems of popular edu-
cation were devised, freely instructed thou-
sands of the poor boys of France. In 1685,
eleven years after the death of our hero,
his sister Frangoise founded a similar or-
der, called Marquette Sisters, for the free
education of girls. This order, to which
FrauQoise sacrificed all of her fortune, was
widely successful throughout northern
France; with the name changed to Sisters
of Providence of Laon, its good work has
continued, with but brief interruptions, down
to our own times.

CHAPTER n

THE TRAINING OF A MAN OP ACTION

Wb have seen that Rose de la Salle, who
married Nicolas Marquette, the principal
adherent of King Henry IV at Laon, was al-
lied to the famous Jean Baptiste de la Salle,
founder of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools, Thus were united, in the blood of
our missionary, the virtues of distinguished
connection with the church and philanthropy,
and those qualities of head and heart which
bore fruitage in high service to the state.

The Marquettes were blessed with six
children: Louis, who was, for what reason
we know not, nicknamed "Catalan;" Jean
Bertrand, Michel, Frangoise, concerning
whose order of Marquette Sisters we have
already read, and who died upon the twenty-
fifth of November, 1697 ; Marie, and, last and
greatest, Jacques.

Jacques was bom, as presumably were all
of his sisters and brothers, within the battle-

The Training of a Man of Action

scarred walls of the Bock of Laon. The date
was June 1, 1637. Probably the most stir-
ring period of his father's life had passed.
His patron. King Henry, had been dead these
twenty-seven years ; and now Henry's feeble
son, Lonis XTTI, was upon the throne, al-
though behind him stood the inflexible Riche-
lieu, minister of state, then at the height of
his power. Spain and Austria were at the
time invading Prance; but, before Jacques
Marquette was two years of age, the enemy
was turned back and Prance had successfully
withstood the shock. That Nicolas continued
in his official station throughout these times
of storm and stress upon the frontier, there
is no doubt; but the records are silent as to
his deeds.

It has been contended that the household
into which Jacques was born was the lead-
ing family of Laon. Apparently, its mem-
bers were as wealthy as they were promi-
nent. It is therefore reasonable to suppose
that the youthful career of our hero was
such as in that day became the son of a
prosperous citizen and honored official. The
soul-stirring story of old Laon, whose gates

Father Marquette

had been battered by more than a thou-
sand years of warfare, must have strongly
appealed to a sturdy youth in whose veins
coursed the blood of centuries of valiant an-
cestors who had fought to preserve its walls
intact. Possibly much of the broad plain
dominated by the fortress town was the proud
possession of his family. The times were
such as to develop the "strenuous life.*'
There were hours in which young Marquette
of Laon must have felt strong within him the
call to, arms and to statesmanship.

But there was that other, and in a sense
contrary, element in his blood and in his sur-
roundings. His mother's predilections were
no doubt toward the church, and thither the
steps of her youngest son soon led. The war-
rior within him, however, chose a priestly
field which presented abundant opportunity
for displaying the qualities of the scholar, the
diplomat, and the soldier. Forsaking what
worldly honors might be won by a man of
great family and generous wealth, he elected,
as did many another high-spirited youth of
his day, to become a Jesuit missionary.

To the large neighboring city of Nancy,
10

The Training of a Man of Action

Marquette went shortly after his seventeenth
birthday, and upon the eighth of October,
1654, we find him entered in the Jesuit col-
lege there as a novice. He studied also at
Pont-d.-Mousson, and after several years of
preparation was received as a professed
member of this celebrated order, which is
devoted to education and to missionary ef-
fort. In the manner of most of the Jesuit
missionaries of his time, he served for sev-
eral years as a teacher, his work taking him
into the schools of his order at Reims, Charle-
ville, and Langres, where he appears to have
won an excellent reputation as a student of
languages.

Throughout the entire life of young Mar-
quette the French Jesuits in Canada, then
called New Prance, had carried on one of the
most remarkable missionary enterprises in
all history. Jesuit priests had first reached
New France in 1611, nearly a decade before
the landing of the Plymouth Pilgrims ; but it
was not until 1632, five years before Mar-
quette's birth, that circumstances permitted
them to commence with vigor their celebrated
attempt to convert to Christianity the war-

Father Marquette

like Indians of Canada and the Mississippi
basin.

For nearly a centnry and a half, this work
of the Jesnit fathers was one of the chief
elements in the story of New France, With
heroic fortitude, often with marvelous enter-
prise, they pushed into the heart of the far-
thest wilderness while still there were but
Indian trails to connect the widely scattered
villages of the aborigines. Cultivated men,
for the most part, trained to see as well as to
think, they left the most highly civilized coun-
try in Europe to seek shelter in the foul and
often inhospitable huts of the fiercest barba-
rians in history. To win these crude beings
to the Christian faith it was necessary to
know them intimately in their daily life, to
follow them upon their hunting and their war
parties, and often to accompany miserable
bands which were fleeing from the wrath of
a stronger enemy who swept everything be-
fore him ; to know their speech, their habits,
their manner of thought, their various peculi-
arities. No white men have ever become
more expert in forest lore than were the
Jesuit fathers. Never in any field of action
12

The Training of a Man of Action

has there been witnessed greater heroism
than that of these devoted missionaries ; and
many of them were to lose their lives in the
task, some by tortnres as horrible as could
be invented by the ingenuity of savage minds.
From 1632 until 1673— the year of Mar-
quette's discovery of the Mississippi — ^there
was annually published in Paris a little vol-
ume called a Relation, which contained an ac-
count of the far-spread work of this Jesuit
mission to the Indians for the twelve months
previous : it was largely made up of extracts
from reports or letters sent in by the mis-
sionaries to their superiors at Quebec. To-
day these Relations are of very great value
to historians, for from them are obtainable
what is often the only information we have
of affairs in New France for certain periods.
During the time of their publication the Re-
lations were exceedingly popular in France,
especially among the aristocratic class.
Their regular appearance was always await-
ed with the keenest interest, and assisted
greatly in arousing the enthusiasm of benevo-
lent people, who made rich gifts for the sup-
port of the missions, which required the con-
13

Father Marquette

stant expenditure of a great deal of money ;
they also awakened on the part of many
Frenchwomen a desire to go out to New
France as hospital nuns, and helped raise
among the men the necessary recruits to offer
up their lives and fortunes as missionaries to
the savages.

No doubt young Marquette had eagerly
read these Relations before he joined the
Jesuit order; it is quite likely that they as-
sisted in determining him to take the step,
although it is reasonable to believe that his
mother's pious inclinations also had much to
do with his decision. We are told that
throughout the twelve years which he spent
in the service of his order in Franee, as stu-
dent and as teacher, he was continually fired
with missionary zeal, and longed for the day
when he, too, might enter upon this field of
martyrdom as a soldier of the Cross.

But the discipline of the Jesuit order is
severe. Possibly his superiors were long of
the opinion that he was not yet ripe for the
sacrifice; meekness and gentleness were lead-
ing traits in Marquette's character, and these
may not at first have seemed to fit him for the

The Training of a Man of Action

rude life of the missionary; or perhaps his
success as a teacher may have seemed to mark
him for a scholastic career. At all events,
the young zealot was obliged throughout a
dozen long years to practise patience, while
inwardly yearning with all the intensity of
his soul for a life of sacrifice in the North
American wilds. The Relations had borne
to him the story of the trials for the church
suffered by such great brethren of his order
as Biard, Mass6, Charles and Jerome Lale-
mant, Bagueneau, Vimont, Le Jeune, Chau-
monot, Bressani, Drtiillettes, Dablon, and
Allouez ; they had recorded for him the mar-
tyrdom of Du Thet, the giant Br^beuf , Dan-
iel, Gamier, the gentle Jogues, G6upil,
Menard, Chabanel, Garreau, and Gabriel
Lalemant

No wonder that the heart of this son of
warriors was stirred to its depths by the re-
cital of such heroic deeds as his brothers
were, in the consecrated service of the church,
daily performing in darkest America; that
he fretted beneath the bonds which kept a
man of action within cloistered walls. But,
ever with his feverish ambition unchecked,
16

Father Marquette

young Father Marquette carefully pat-
terned all the details of his own life after
that of the greatest of the Jesuit mission-
aries, Saint Frangois Xavier, who had plant-
ed the faith in fifty-two kingdoms of Asia.
Thus did he bide his time.

CHAPTER m

ABBIVAL IN GANAD4 .

When Father Marquette was twenty-nine
years of age (in 1666) , he received the long-
wished-for orders from his superior to pro-
ceed to New Prance to prepare for the work
of a forest missionary. A Jesuit priest, like
a soldier, must be always ready to march.
He was, therefore, not long in reaching some
port in northern France, whence was bound a
ship for Quebec.

In those days, crossing the Atlantic Ocean
was far from being a pleasure excursion.
The vessels were small, unventilated, and ill-
arranged; they were tossed about by fierce
tempests; cooking was often impossible upon
them, because of the excessive motion; and
the passengers suffered greatly not only from
seasickness and ship-fever, and not seldom
from scurvy, but frequently from bruises,
sprains, or even broken limbs caused by rude
pitching and rolling upon the turbulent
8 17

Father Marquette

waves. Navigation charts were but crude
and pilots nnskilled, with the result that ship-
wrecks were of frequent occurrence, often
entailing prolonged misery and even death.
Some of the graphic descriptions of voyages
to New Prance, written by the early Jesuit
fathers and published in the Relations^
abound in horrors — although sometimes with
comical situations, when viewed from the
standpoint of a man who had successfully
endured the passage — which must have
cooled the ardor of any but the most enter-
prising or the most zealous of those who
would seek fortune or opportunity for service
in the New World.

But the ordinary trials and disasters of the
voyage were increased by ever constant fear
of the prowling ships of enemies. Wars were
then frequent between the nations of Europe^
and navigators did not always know with
whom their kings were quarreling ; news trav-
eled slowly ; and confiding captains sometimes
unwittingly fell into the hands of enemies
from whom they might have escaped had they
known them to be such. Again, it frequently
happened that the masters of fighting vessels

Arrival in Canada

did not always wait for a declaration of war
before they attacked a foreign ship which
seemed to promise rich returns in plunder.
Many of the great voyagers whose deeds we
celebrate in history were practically bucca-
neerSy who, upon one pretext or another,
preyed upon the craft of every other nation
than their own. To-day, with improved mor-
als in our international relations, we should
call such conduct piracy, and would punish
the corsairs very severely; but in earlier cen-
turies it was counted a species of valiant
adventure. The man who could bring home
to the ports of his monarch the largest fleet
and the greatest treasure, captured upon the
high seas generally at the cost of much inno-
cent blood, was, without any questions being
asked, richly rewarded and perhaps made an
admiral.

We should think it a great hardship to be
obliged to run such dire risks of life, liberty,
or property, even during the six or seven
or ten days which now are consumed upon
a voyage between Prance and North America.
But when we reflect that the time ordinarily
spent in such a journey was, in the day of
19

Father Marquette

Father Marquette, three months and not in-
frequently four, we may form some notion of
the miseries of such a trip, with its physical
and mental discomforts; and may be better
able to appreciate the hardy spirit of the pio-
neer settlers and missionaries who emigrated
to America in the seventeenth century.

The young priest has left us no account
of the incidents of his voyage ; but upon the
pages of the interesting Journal which was
kept by the superior of the Jesuits at Que-
bec, for the purpose of recording the princi-
pal events of their life there, we read under
the date of September 20, 1666: "Father
Jacques Marquette arrived, in good health,
on the 7th ship.'' And one of the members of
the Jesuit household, Father Thiery Besche-
fer, writing to friends in France, upon the
fourth of October, said : " Father Marquette
and Master Elie have arrived safely, after a
somewhat protracted voyage — ^which, how-
ever, has been prosperous for them and for
all of the 8 ships that have come to us from
France. Not a single one of these fell into
the hands of the English or of the Turks,
although several were pursued.''
20

Arrival in Canada

This good fortune, however, did not ac-
company the last ship of the season from
Prance, for in the Journal, dated October
fifth, is the record : " Finally, the last ship,
called the fortune blanche, arrived, after
having encountered many dangers, — ^having
lost her anchors, run aground 4 leagues from
here, etc,, — and, above all, after losing 5 men,
who went ashore near Tadoussac, and are
thought to have been captured by the Iro-
quois.** Thus were there dangers to travel-
ers, by land as well as by sea. Tadoussac
was a small French and Indian settlement
at the mouth of the Saguenay Biver, where
an important fur trade was carried on by
Frenchmen with the Indians of the lower St.
Lawrence River and that vast territory,
abounding in lakes and rivers, which reaches
northward up to Lake St. John and to the
back of Labrador. Vessels generally stopped
there on the voyage between Quebec and
France ; but just then the Indians of the re-
gion, who were friendly to the French, were
being attacked by the relentless Iroquois of
New York State, who bitterly hated the
French, and whose war-path often led them
21

Father Marquette

to the very gates of Quebec. To wander into
the tangled woods, out of reach of the guns
of the little forts which protected the French
settlements, often meant, in those days of Iro-
quois raids, either being felled by an unseen
foe, or else captured and made to suffer slow
death by savage torture. As no record ap-
pears of the return of the five missing men
of the unfortunate ship " Fortune Blanche,*^
it is fair to presume that they were carried
to the home of the Iroquois, in the beautiful
valley of the Mohawk, and there met a hor-
rible fate.

The Quebec to which Father Marquette
was introduced, together with the three other
French Jesuits who had preceded him in Au-
gust, was of course very different from the
Quebec of to-day. Upon the summit of the
lofty cliff which commands the St. Lawrence
River and the surrounding country lived
the officials, soldiers, priests, and nuns.
Chief among the rude stone buildings upon
this lofty crest were the residence (or " cas-
tle ") of the governor, the church and " col-
lege" of the Jesuits, and the hospital and
little convent of the Ursuline nuns. Along
22

Arrival in Canada

the rim of this rocky perch stretched mass-
ive stone walls, with gates and turrets — suf-
ficient, when the height and steepness of the
cliff are considered, easily to turn back any
savage enemy armed only with slings, bows,
and spears, or with flint-lock muskets; and
proof against an ordinary siege by the light
artillery of white enemies, whose ships could
make small headway under the brows of this
natural fortress. At the foot of a steep, nar-
row, and winding path which led down to the
beach were ranged some warehouses kept by
fur-traders and shipping men, with two or
three score of mean dwellings and other
structures clustered about them: here lived
the bulk of the population. The tiny capital
of New France, although it had been settled
for half a century, contained only a few hun-
dred inhabitants ; indeed, all of New France^
from Newfoundland to Lake Superior, boast-
ed a white population of but ten thousand
souls — soldiers, missionaries, nuns, fisher-
men, sailors, settlers, and fur-traders.

So great were the difficulties of keeping in
touch with Europe, and such the hidden ter-
rors of the almost untrodden wilderness

Father Marquette

which stretched limitless from this lofty rock,
that in our day, at the dawn of the twentieth
century, there exist few, if any, white settle-
ments so far removed from civilization as
was the Quebec to which Father Marquette
lifted admiring eyes upon the twentieth of
September, 1666,

The Jesuit missionaries of New France
have, by their splendid deeds of exploration
and of heroism, occupied so large a space in
American history that not many of us realize
how few of them were engaged in the serv-
ice of attempting the christianization ^ the
North American savages. Throughout the
hundred and eighty years which elapsed be-
tween the coming of Fathers Biard and Mass^
(1611) and the death of Father Well (1791),
but 320 Jesuit priests, scholastics, and lay
brothers (or assistants) came to Canada
from France ; and probably at no time were
over fifty-five employed in the service at once
throughout the vast stretch of country from
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, up the river and
the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi to
New Orleans.

To the little party of his brethren gathered
24

Arrival in Canada

at Quebec, the young teacher brought welcome
news from the houses and colleges of their
order in France, and curious incidents of his
long voyage ; while his own eager questioning
was rewarded by details of the life of sacri-
fice in the New World in which he was about
to participate.

Winter in this northern latitude com-
mences early. The autumn was now well
sped. The novice who arrived upon the sev-
enth ship must at once be set the task of ac-
quiring the simplest essentials of his new call-
ing — a knowledge of the Indians, their habits
and their language, and the best methods of
dealing with them from a missionary's
standpoint. Besides this knowledge of the
savages, he must learn the elements of wood-
craft, or the art of living in the forest, leav-
ing to the future that long and painful prac-
tise which alone can make him adept; and
acquaintance with the methods and character
of the fur-traders, whose commercial greed
sadly corrupted the tribesmen, was quite as
necessary an accomplishment, for not seldom
was the trader the missionary's worst enemy.

Only twenty days were allowed the new
25

Father Marquette

arrival to recover from his voyage and get
his bearings in Quebec. And then, the tenth
of October, occurs this simple record in the
Journal, in the firm handwriting of the supe-
rior, Father Frangois le Mercier: "Father
Jacques Marquette goes up to Three Rivers,
to be a pupil of Father Drtlillettes in the
Montagnais language."

Qur hero had at last entered upon his
chosen field.

CHAPTER IV

TWO YBARS OF APPRBNTIOBSHIP

Three Rivers is seventy-seven miles
above Quebec, upon the northern bank of the
River St. Lawrence, at the point where the
waters of the St. Maurice empty into the
larger stream. It was one of the earliest out-
posts of Canada and the center of a large
Jesuit mission to the Indians. So slow had
been the work of populating New France, that
Three Rivers was, at the time of which we
write, although thirty-two years old, still a
small village of less than five hundred in-
habitants.

Like that of Tadoussac, at the mouth of
the Saguenay, the site of Three Rivers had
from the earliest times been a favorite gath-
ering-place for bands of Indians when going
to and frpm their winter hunts. When the
French introduced the fur trade, it proved
a convenient point for the traders to meet
the savages in spring and autumn. This was
27

Father Marquette

the reason why the Jesuits established a mis-
sion there. The missionary who was sta-
tioned at Three Rivers was always present
at these semiannual trading "meets;" and
when the wandering tribesmen returned to
the wilderness he would accompany some
selected band, sharing with them, if need be,
upon their long and toilsome journeys, all the
horrors of famine, pestilence, and intertribal
war.

Such was the rude school to which Mar-
quette was promptly sent by his superior.
Father DrtLillettes, then in charge at Three
Rivers, a veteran from the missions in Maine,
was himself a master in the many-sided art
of the forest missionary, and proved an ad-
mirable instructor. The matter of language
was a serious stumbling-block to many of the
missionaries of New France. It is no small
task to gain such knowledge of European
tongues as may enable one to use them with
ease in conversation; and these are formed
upon acknowledged principles of philology,
while grammars and dictionaries are avail-
able to the student. But the strange dialects
of the Indian tribes are, many of them, crude

Two Years of Apprenticeship

and irregular in construction, often only dis-
tantly related to one another, and in many
ways excessively difficult to acquire ; although
it should be mentioned that some of these
tongues won the admiration of the mission-
aries for completeness of construction.

It was not given to every one of the Jes-
uits to become an adept in even one of the
rude tongues which were spoken by the bar-
barians of Canada. Several of the learned
fathers found it impossible to overcome the
linguistic obstacles in their path, and were
obliged either to return to France in despair
or to take up parish work in the white set-
tlements ; while others, although not daunted
by the problem, were, to their great disap-
pointment, and despite their devotion to the
task, physically and mentally unable to be-
come accustomed to the wretched life and
food of an Indian camp.

Young Father Marquette was, appar-
ently, never a man of great strength, being
fitted by physique to be a college professor
rather than a tamer of savages. But he was
made of stem stuff, and his natural aptitude
for acquiring languages now stood him well

Father Marquette

in stead. He himself writes that he came to
be expert in six Indian dialects, which is in-
deed a remarkable record. Thus in many
ways did this stout-hearted scholar of Laon
resemble his great model, Saint Francois
Xavier, who spoke numerous tongues, carried
the gospel to many lands, and died alone in
the wilderness. For such a career and such
a death Marquette devoutly prepared him-
self, hoping and praying for the very end
which at last befell him.

Marquette had not yet attained promi-
nence in his order ; he was but one of many.
Indeed, his death followed so closely upon
his great explorations, that he himself never
knew of the fame that he had won. The rec-
ords of the time, therefore, contain no special
mention of these two years of apprenticeship.
But we know enough of the methods pursued
to follow him clearly in imagination. He
must have studied deep and hard with Father
Drtlillettes, at first at Three Elvers, and later
at shifting Indian camps upon the vast net-
work of rivers and lakes which lies northward
of the St Lawrence.

It must not be supposed that the Jesuits,
30

Two Years of Apprenticeship

in iheir long black robes and shovel-shaped
hats, were always welcome visitors among
their savage hosts. The invitation to the
missionaries to accompany them was often
grudgingly given; or, if tendered in good
faith, was apt soon to be regretted.

From the pages of the Relations, wherein
the exi)eriences of each Jesuit father are
carefully given, we gain a vivid picture of
life in the primeval forest as he lived it We
seem to see him upon his long canoe voyages,
squatted amid his dark-skinned compan-
ions, working his passage at the paddles and
carrying heavy loads upon the portage trail ;
for the missionary, in order to keep the In-
dians in good humor, was obliged to labor as
hard as, if not harder than, any of them. We
see him often the butt and scorn of the sav-
age camp; sometimes he is deserted in the
heart of the wilderness and obliged to wait
by the side of the river, or upon an island,
for another fleet of boats, or to make his way
alone as best he may. When at last he has
arrived at his joumey^s end, we often find
him vainly seeking for shelter in the squalid
huts of the natives, with every man's hand
81

Father Marquette

against him^ but his own heart open to all.
We see him^ even when finally housed in some
far-away village — ^perhaps in a little shelter
of bark and reeds reared by his own bleed-
ing hands — resorting to every known method
of baptizing the young and the dying, either
with or without their consent.

The Indian ^^ medicine-men/' who are at
once physicians and priests, rely for their
success chiefly upon the supposed powers of
magic, with many cheap tricks to affect the
imagination of the people. The Jesuits
called them ^^ sorcerers/' and soon found in
them a serious obstacle to their work; for of
course the trade of the medicine-man was
gone, in a village wherein a Christian mis-
sionary had won the faith of the people.
Boused by the medicine-men, who invented
strange tales regarding the missionaries, and
perverted their every act into some mysteri-
ous ceremony connected with the powers of
evil, the Jesuit would often find a steadily
growing spirit of opposition. This some-
times would develop into a climax of super-
stitious frenzy which swept him before it,
and perhaps cost him his life.
82

Two Years of Apprenticeship

Affairs were not always in this gloomy
stage. Now and then the "black robe," as
he was called by the Indians^ found that his
welcome lasted as long as his stay. But, at
besty he must bear his full burden of the rude
life upon the trail or the voyage, or in the
camp ; must watch carefully the captious hu-
mors of his dusky friends, being careful by
no word, gesture, or expression to wound
their sensitive spirits, which were as quick to
resentment as is tinder to the kindling steel.

In a circular of instructions issued in
Paris to missionaries who were to accompany
Indians in canoes up the Ottawa River to the
Huron country, are these directions, which
show us how careful were the Jesuit fathers
to make themselves agreeable to the captious
savages whom they sought to win to Chris-
tianity :

" You should love the Indians like broth-
ers, with whom you are to dpend the rest of
your life. — Never make them wait for you in
embarking. — Take a flint and steel to light
their pipes and kindle their fire at night; for
these little services win their hearts. — Try
to eat their sagamit^ as they cook it, bad and

4 33

Father Marquette

dirty as it is. — Fasten up the skirts of your
cassock^ that you may not carry water or sand
into the canoe. — ^Wear no shoes or stock-
ings in the canoe ; but you may put them on
in crossing the portages. — Do not make
yourself troublesome, even to a single In-
dian. — Do not ask them too many questions. —
Bear their faults in silence, and appear al-
ways cheerful. — ^Buy fish for them from the
tribes you will pass; and for this purpose
take with you some awls, beads, knives, and
fish-hooks. — ^Be not ceremonious with the In-
dians ; take at once what they offer you : cere-
mony offends them. — Be very careful, when
in the canoe, that the brim of your hat does
not annoy them. Perhaps it would be better
to wear your night-cap. There is no such
thing as impropriety among Indians. — Re-
member that it is Christ and his cross that
you are seeking; and if you aim at anything
else, you will get nothing but affliction for
body and mind.''

In the same vein are the following sug-
gestions by another missionary of the time,
which are selected from a long letter filled
with similar good advice, counseling humil-

Two Years of Apprenticeship

ity, patience, and long suffering on the part
of Jesuits who are to sjpend their lives with
the Indians :

*^ JoumeySy and the cabins of the savages,
are truly schools of mortification, of patience,
and of resignation. — More is gained with
all the savages by j^entleness than by severity
• • • and by patience than by anger. — ^It is
well to do good to them, when the opportunity
presents itself, and to assist them in their
necessity; they remember and speak of it
very frequently. — They are pleased with
visits paid to their cabins, and consider them-
selves despised or hated by the missionary
who does not visit them. — They are like-
wise pleased to find gratitude. — Nothing is
ever lost by caressing the children, and by
occasionally praising the young men and the
hunters ; by respecting the old people ; by hon-
oring the dead, and praying to God for them,
etc. — One must not manifest any displeas-
ure when the children scream or weep. —
[The missionary] must, so far as possible, be
ever gay and affable, and not be too famil-
iar. — He must not be too long in saying
prayers. — One must also avoid complain-
86

Father Marquette

ing of the food; — ^Unless [one] has great
courage, and resolution to suffer, and some
affection for the savages, he will have hardly
any satisfaction."

The Jesuit missionaries were not always
alone in their work. Oftentimes they were
accompanied by devout laymen, who freely
gave their services to the assistance of the
fathers ; these companions were called donnas
(given men). Upon journeys they helped to
paddle, and to carry loads over the portage
trails or upon long marches through forests
or across prairies; and sometimes were
needed as protection to the missionaries. At
mission stations they were useful in many
ways. Some of them were trained physi-
cians and nursed the sick, Indians and whites
alike; others were armorers, and mended
weapons and utensils for the savages; they
hunted, fished, and raised rude crops for the
fathers, who were thereby enabled more fully
to visit the sick and the dying, instruct the
tribesmen in the faith, conduct the offices of
the church, and in general to forward their
regular missionary work. The Jesuits be-
came much attached to their faithful donnds ;
36

Two Years of Apprenticeship

and some of these assistants, like Gonpil, the
companion of Father Jogues, suffered mar-
tyrdom as truly as the missionaries them-
selves.

In addition to the donnas, it sometimes
was necessary at large missions to hire white
men-servants to assist in the hard labor.
Some of these men, donnas and servants,
went into this work purely for the love of
adventure, others as a means of learning for-
est lore and the Indian languages. Many of
them, after years of severe training, went
forth from Jesuit service to become explor-
ers for the government of New France, or to
conduct fur-trading operations on their own
account, through the vast region between the
Alleghany and the Bocky Mountains.

There is no doubt that during these two
years, while a pupil of Father Drtiillettes,
Marquette wandered far and wide through
the wilderness of the lower St. Lawrence,
and drank deep from the cup of experience ;
for he appears to have emerged well-fitted
to his task, being at once ordered to the far-
thest outpost upon the borders of New
France, the land of the Ottawas.
87

CHAPTER V

THB INDIANS AND THE MISSIONS

In order to understand these Jesuit mis-
sionsy whose story forms one of the most
thrilling chapters in human history, it will be
necessary for us to consider briefly the vari-
ous tribes or nations of Indians among whom
they worked. The active rivalries of these
tribes were, perhaps, the greatest obstacle
which the missionaries had to face.

Were one asked to draw a map locating the
several tribes at the time of Marquette, it
would be impossible to do so, save in a gen-
eral way. Owing to their wandering habits
— sometimes ranging through hundreds of
miles of wilderness, and frequently occupying
land that had been but recently occupied by
other bands — they shifted like the pieces of
colored glass in a kaleidoscope. Then again,
members of one tribe married into another,
or were adopted; sometimes whole villages

The Indians and the Missions

or tribes were merged into other villages or
tribeSy often as the result of wars ; frequently
the missionaries found villages composed of
groups of a half dozen or more distinct tribes
that were friendly to one another.

It is only in our day, when far more is
known by scholars about the Indians, from a
scientific point of view, than it was possible
for the Jesuit missionaries to know, that it
has been practicable to classify all these shift-
ing and differing bands into groups or fami-
lies ; and this is done through a careful study
of their languages — ^those who spoke dialects
similar in character being classed together.
Exactly in the same manner we divide the
different and often warring nations of Eu-
rope into the Latin, the Slavic, and the Teu-
tonic families, although all had a common
origin in the old Aryan race. The American
Indians are also of one race, from the Eski-
mos to the Patagonians; but upon resem-
blances in language we divide the Indians of
North America, east of the Rocky Mountains,
into families, the four most important being
called Algonkins, Iroquoisi, Southern Indians,
and Siouan. Like the members of the lin-
89

Father Marquette

goistic families of Europe, not all of the vari-
ous tribes included in any of these Indian
families were alike in physique, customs, or
in degree of civilization. Indeed, taken as a
whole, the tribesmen differed very greatly in
appearance, habits, and intellect — ranging
from the Southern barbarians, some of whose
tribes had made good progress toward civ-
ilization, down to the savage root-eaters of
the Bocky Mountain region.

The Algonkins were the most numerous,
and occupied the greater part of our country
from about Nashville, Tenn., northward to
Hudson Bay, and from the Atlantic westward
to the Mississippi Biver, and northwestward
to the sources of the Saskatchewan. Their
best-known tribes were the Indians of New
England, those along the lower St. Law-
rence Biver and northward, the Delawares,
Miamis, Shawnese, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Sacs^
Foxes, Crees, Pottawattomies, and Illinois.
These savages were rough in their life and
manners, and intensely warlike; obtained
their living from hunting and fishing, and a
crude agriculture; lived in rude wigwams
covered with bark, skins, or mats made of
40

The Indians and the Missions

reeds; and, although many had permanent
villages^ wandered far and wide in search of
fish, game, and furs, or upon the war-path.
Of all our Indians, we hear most of these in
history, because through their lands came the
largest and most determined movement of
white population, both French and English.
It was formerly thought that the Algonkins
were very numerous; but it is now known
that probably at no time did they number
over 95,000 souls, possibly not over 50,000.
There were vast stretches of their territory
wholly unoccupied by them; had it been
otherwise, white men would have found
the opposition to settlement too great for
them to overcome, save by slow and painful
process.

The Iroquois occupied the greater part of
New York State, much of Pennsylvania, the
south shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and
the upper St. Lawrence; they were planted
like an island in the midst of the great Algon-
kin sea. There were five principal tribes in
tjiis family, — Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas,
Cayugas, and Senecas, — and these formed a
confederacy which bears the name in English
41

Father Marquette

history of ** Five Nations," * although they
called themselves " The Long House/* These
five tribes sometimes were at war with one
another, but usually they acted as a confed-
eracy; and being the craftiest, most daring,
and most intelligent Indians known to us,
were the terror of every tribe east of the Mis-
sissippi. They greatly disliked the French
and all tribes who befriended the French.
The Jesuits had more trouble with the Iro-
quois than with all other Indians combined ;
for the confederates — ^who lived chiefly in
central New York, within villages guarded
by stout walls of logs placed on end, called
"palisades** — frequently raided lands into
which the missionaries had ventured, and
swept everything before them with fire and
tomahawk, their war parties sometimes ven-
turing as far west as Illinois and Wisconsin.
These are the Indians of whom we read in
Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. But the
noble savage therein described is a creature
of the novelist's fancy; the real Indian, even
at his best, was a far less agreeable being.

* After the Tnscaroras were taken into the league (1714-15)»
it was called the "Six Nations."

The Indians and the Missions

The Hurons, lying to the east of the great
lake of that name, had, although relatives,
in 1649-50 been almost wholly exterminated
by their " consins '* of the Five Nations. But
in the very year and month of Marquette's
arrival in Canada, the French severely pun-
ished the confederates, who had so long been
making life a torment in the colonies on the
St. Lawrence. Their villages were burned,
and they were obliged to ask for mercy and
for the presence of the Jesuits. This peace
lasted for twenty years. The Iroquois prob-
ably numbered only 40,000 people — a remark-
ably small population to play so important
a part as they did in American history.

The Southern (Maskoki) Indians occu-
pied the country south of the Tennessee Riv-
er, between the Mississippi and Savannah
Rivers and the Atlantic. They were the
Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks,
and Seminoles. Of a milder disposition than
their northern neighbors, they were further
advanced in civilization; indeed, by the time
of our Revolutionary War, they were in some
respects not far behind the white frontiers-
men of that region. They numbered not

Father Marquette

above 50,000 persons. The Jesuits did not
do much work among these tribes; but the
black gowns found it much easier to convert
them than the rude nations of the north.

The Siouan (Sioux) family occupied for
the most part the country beyond the Missis-
sippi, although the Jesuits frequently met
them to the east of the great river. They
were and are a fierce, high-spirited people,
who had little practise in agriculture, and
wandered as freely as the Arab tribes; but,
unlike the Arabs, they had no flocks, and war
and hunting were their chief occupations^
The Jesuits went but little among them ; they
met this family chiefly in the persons of the
Winnebagoes, an outlying band which lived
in Wisconsin and were in alliance with their
Algonkin neighbors.

A complete linguistic map of North Ameri-
can Indians, at the time of European discov-
ery, would show several other families east
of .the Eocky Mountains — the Eskimos,
along the coasts of Labrador, Hudson Bay,
and more northern lands ; Beothukans, in
Newfoundland; Ucheans, in Georgia; Timu-
quanans, occupying the greater part of the
44

The Indians and the Missions .

Florida peninsula ; Caddoans, in Texas, E^an-
sas, Nebraska, and North Dakota ; Tonikans,
in Mississippi and Louisiana; Natchesans,
Attacapans, Chitimachans, and Adaizans, in
Louisiana; Tonkawans, Karankawans, and
CoahuiltecanSy in Texas ; and Eiowans in Ne-
braska, Wyoming, and Colorado ; besides out-
lying groups of Iroquois in Virginia, North
Carolina, and Mississippi, and of Algonkins
in the Carolinas and Colorado. But, gener-
ally speaking, the four principal families first
enumerated were those with which the story
of New France is most concerned.

The tribes which the black gowns sought
to bring to the Christian faith were, then,
principally the Algonkins, the Hurons, and
the Iroquois, and the Southern tribes in
part. The field was enormous, being about
two thousand miles in width, from Newfound-
land to the head of Lake Superior, and a
similar stretch from Hudson Bay to New Or-
leans. It became necessary, as their work
was extended with each discovery of new
lands to the west and southwest, to divide it
into seven great centers of activity, each with
several missionaries, whose superior re-
45

Father Marquette

ported every year to the superior-general of
the order in Qnebec what had been done in
his own field. These varions missions were :
That to the Abenakis of Acadia — ^the name
given by the French to northeastern Maine,
Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick — and of
Cape Breton Island; that to the Montagnais
Indians, as the tribes of the lower St. Law-
rence and the Saguenay were called — Ta-
doussac being the central station; the several
missions at Quebec, Montreal, Three Rivers,
and in that region, were united under com-
mon control ; the mission to the Hurons, be-
tween Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, was,
during much of its thirty-five years of exist-
ence, the most dangerous of all, because of the
stolid barbarism of these cousins of the Iro-
quois, and later because the Hurons were fre-
quently raided, and at last almost annihilated,
by the Long House — a troublous period in
which seven of the missionaries lost their
lives in the work ; the Iroquois mission, which
had a severe experience, its principal martyr
being Father Jogues; the CHtawa mission^
about which we shall read in more detail upon
later pages, because within this great field
46

The Indians and the Missions

Father Marquette was destined to labor ; and
lastly, the Louisiana mission, to which he first
pointed the way, but which was not estab-
lished until after his death.

Now that we know something of the task
in which the Jesuit missionaries were en-
gaged, we can better appreciate the work to
which Marquette had consecrated his life,
and can with some sympathy accompany him
upon his brief but brilliant career.

CHAPTER VI

ARBIVAL AT THE OTTAWA MISSION

Upon the twenty-first of April, 1668, good
Father le Mercier, the Jesuit superior-gen-
eral, entered in the Journal kept by the mis-
sionaries at their house upon the cliff of Que-
bec, the fact that several of them were " go-
ing to embark, to go up the river," to Mon-
treal. Among the number were "Father
Marquette, two men, and a young lad to
await an opportunity of going to the Outa-
wak [Ottawa] country."

The tribes included in the Ottawa mission
were the Ojibwas at Sault de Ste. Marie;
the Beavers, the Crees, the Ottawas, and refu-
gee Hurons on Lake Superior; the Menomo-
nees, Pottawattomies, Sacs, Foxes, Winne-
bagoes, Miamis, Illinois, and those of the
Sioux who lived on or near the banks of the
Mississippi. The Ottawas were the first In-
dians from the upper Great Lakes to trade
with the French, hence the vast district west

Arrival at the Ottawa Mission

of Lake Huron became earlj known as '^ the
country of the Ottawas."

In order to reach his new field of labor,
it would be necessary for Marquette to wait
at Montreal until he could join a party going
thither, either of fur-traders or of Indians
who were returning home after a visit to the
French settlements on the St Lawrence.
Such an expedition would necessarily pro-
ceed in bark canoes by the laborious route
of the Ottawa and Mattawan Rivers, the
French River, and (Georgian Bay of Lake
Huron. The question may naturally be
asked, Why did the French pursue so labori-
ous a path to the West as that of the Ottawa
River t Why did they not take the natural
route of the Great Lakes, as is done to-day f
We have read, in the preceding chapter, that
the dread Iroquois hated the French. Now
the Iroquois, from their palisaded towns in
New York, held firm control of Lake Erie.
Indian tribes wishing to trade with the Dutch
and the English at Albany (then called Fort
Orange), who were the friends of the Long
House, might upon this lake paddle their
fleets of fur-laden canoes without hindrance,
5 49

Father Marquette

and no donbt many white traders from Al-
bany were similarly favored. But French-
men and French-loving Indians must keep
off. The result was that Huron was, so far
as known records show, the first Great Lake
seen by the French; next Ontario, next Su-
perior, then Michigan, and lastly Erie. In
the very next year after Marquette went
to the Ottawa country, the Iroquois first al-
lowed French traders to use the lake which
had so long been closed to them; but it was
not until thirty years later that the Ottawa
ceased to be the principal trade-route to the
West.

No details have come down to us of the
journey of Father Marquette to the Ottawa
country. He and his three white compan-
ions having joined a fleet bound thither, prob-
ably made the trip without particular inci-
dent ; otherwise the Jesuits' Journal or some
letter of the period would most likely have
chronicled the event. The country of the
Hurons through which they passed had, as
we have seen, been swept by Iroquois several
years before, and was now almost without
inhabitants ; the father was to see many mem-

Arrival at the Ottawa Mission

bers of this exiled tribe upon Lake Superior.
Frequently canoe parties going up the Ottawa
had encountered prowling bands from the
Mohawk; but peace now prevailed, and the
passage could be made with but small danger
from enemies, although disasters from ship-
wreck in the rapid current were not un-
common.

The traveler of to-day may follow very
closely the route of Marquette from Montreal
to Sault de Ste. Marie — ^wholly by rail, in
drawing-room or sleeping-cars, or by rail to
Owens Sound or CoUingwood, thence by
well-appointed steamers through " the thirty
thousand islands " of Georgian Bay, out into
Lake Huron, and among the Manitoulin Is-
lands to St. Marys River and the Sault. It
is one of the most interesting inland water
journeys to be undertaken in North America.

Far different in manner and in speed, the
method adopted by Father Marquette and his
fellow-travelers two and a third centuries
ago. In birch-bark canoes, white men and
red, kneeling on rushes, bent to their paddles.
Against the fierce currents, of the St. Law-
rence and the Ottawa but few miles could

Father Marquette

be covered in a day; even in descending
French Biver, they probably progressed no
more than thirty-five or forty miles between
dawn and sunset; while upon the still waters
of the lakeSy perhaps twenty miles was their
longest run, with wind and weather in their
favor. But interrupting them must have
been frequent head gales and waves too bois-
terous for the cautious Indians, who ventured
not upon rough seas. On such occasions they
camped upon the shore in the shelter of the
woods, until the wind had gone down and the
sea was again quiet.

Thus did our travelers creep along the
lee banks of the St. Lawrence and up through
the rocky defiles of the Ottawa and its west-
em tributary, the Mattawan, with frequent
carries around rapids and cataracts, and no
doubt many a weary parley with visiting
bands of greasy savages who came long dis-
tances through the woods and along tributary
waterways to gaze with idle curiosity upon
and to beg trinkets of the black robe. Fol-
lowing a portage trail to Lake Nipissing, the
travelers reembarked upon those island-
strewn waters and finally emerged into Lake

Arrival at the Ottawa Mission

Huron by way of French River, Then slowly
their canoes wended through the maze of
forested islands in Georgian Bay and along
the bold shores of the lake beyond. Upon
their right gloomy pine forests swept down
in solemn grandeur to the water's edge, or
thickly mantled the towering bluffs; while
to their left the dark-green waters stretched
to the horizon in sublimity. The frail barks
were often tossed about like chips in the
white-capped swells that swept with little
warning around the headlands.

Thus, through storm and calm, they pur-
sued their spasmodic voyage, picking up their
food as they went along from the water and
the forest, children of nature alone in the
wilderness. At last the shore lines led them
to the tortuous River of St. Mary, the outlet
of Lake Superior. Some forty-five miles up
this stream, and fifteen miles below White-
fish Bay, at the foot of Lake Superior, they
encountered the broad cataract called the
Sault de Ste. Marie, upon whose banks — ^wide
flats, hemmed in with rounded, wooded hills
some three hundred feet high — there was a
large village of Ojibwas. This was the
63

Father Marquette

seat of the Ottawa mission, in the journey to
which Marquette had spent probably the
greater part of the summer.

The Ojibwas at the Sault had first been
visited by Fathers Jogues and Baymbault in
1641. But nineteen years elapsed before an-
other Jesuit arrived upon the scene. In 1660
the veteran Father Menard, who was accom-
panying a large party of Ottawas, stopped
here on his way to Keweenaw Bay, on Lake
Superior, where, a little later, he held the
first Christian service heard on the shores of
the northern sea. After a wretched winter
on that inhospitable coast, spent in a rude hut
of fir boughs, with savage neighbors who
mocked and annoyed him, he journeyed in-
land to the south to visit some Hurons who,
having fled both from the Iroquois and the
Sioux, were dwelling in the gloomy pine for-
est about the upper waters of Black Biver,
in what is now Wisconsin. In August, 1661,
he lost his life at a portage on the Wisconsin
Biver, thus being the first martyr upon the
Ottawa mission.

Four years later Father Claude Allouez
set out for Lake Superior, and went to Che-

Arrival at the Ottawa Mission

quamegon Bay, whither we shall, in our next
chapter, accompany Father Marquette. To
the Sault there came, about this time. Father
Louis Nicolas, under the direction of Allouez,
who was then superintending missionary ef-
forts in this field. Apparently Marquette
was to serve as the successor of Nicolas. As
has been previously pointed out, the mission-
aries were sent hither and thither by their
superior-general at Quebec as seemed best
for the service.

In the early days of the Huron mission
the outlook appeared highly promising; but
we know the evil days which afterward befell
it. So in regard to the Ottawa country, the
Relations of the first two years are aglow
with the spirit of confidence. The mission-
aries were everywhere greeted by large audi-
ences, and much curiosity was exhibited con-
cerning the ceremonies of the church; but, as
usual, the wandering habits of the Indians
made instruction difficult, and the result,
while less tragic, was hardly more satisfac-
tory than in Huronia. The Jesuit fathers,
with great toil and misery, and subject to
daily danger and insult, followed their people

Father Marquette

on long hunting and fishing expeditions ; and
even when the hands had returned to the
squalid villages, life there was almost as
comfortless as upon the trail.

The Relation for 1668-69 thus hopefully
refers to the work in the Lake Superior dis-
trict: ^^ The Mission of the Outaouacs is now
one of the finest in new Prance. The scarcity
of all things, the brutal disposition of those
Savages, the remote situation, — ^three or four
hundred leagues away, — ^the number of the
tribes, and the promise that an entire nation .
has just made to Father Aloez [Allouez]
after a general council, to embrace the Chris-
tian Faith — all these are things that make all
our Missionaries wish for that Mission with
a very ardent zeal."

The author of the Relation, Father le Mer-
cier, writing probably in the autumn of 1669,
describes affairs at the Sault, as they have
been described to him by Allouez, who went
down to Quebec that summer to seek reen-
forcements: "The first place where one
meets those upper nations, who are almost
all Algonqioin, is the Sault, more than two
hundred leagues distant from Quebec. It is

Arrival at the Ottawa Mission

there that the Missionaries have stationed
themselves, as the place best suited for their
Apostolic labors, — the other tribes having
been accustomed for some years to betake
themselves thither, in order to go down to
Mont-real or Quebec to trade. A location
has been chosen at the foot of the Bapids in
the River, on the South side, nearly under
the 46th degree of Latitude ; and the cold is
much less severe there than it is here, al-
though we are in nearly the same latitude.*'
This report from Marquette, giving the
result of his first winter's work, closes the en-
couraging account of the Ottawa mission:
" Father Marquette writes us from the Sault
that the harvest [of souls] there is very
abundant, and that it only rests with the Mis-
sionaries to baptize the entire population, to
the number of two thousand. Thus far, how-
ever, our Fathers have not dared to trust
those people, who are too acquiescent, fear-
ing lest they will, after their Baptism, cling
to their customary superstitions. Especial
attention is given to instructing them, and
to baptizing the dying, who are a surer har-
vest"

CHAPTER Vn

THE SAULT AND ITS PEOPLE

In the Relation for 1666-67, which must
have been written about the time that Father
Marquette arrived at the Sault, Father le
Mereier devotes a chapter to the Ottawa mis-
sion. He gives us this rather forbidding ac-
count of the people of the Sault de Ste.
Marie, among whom our hero was now to
labor :

"Toil, famine, scarcity of all things, ill
treatment from the Barbarians, and mockery
from the Idolaters, form the most precious
portion of these Missions.

" As these Tribes have, for the most part,
never had any intercourse with Europeans,
it is difficult to imagine the excess of inso-
lence to which their Barbarism carries them,
and the patience with which one • must be
armed, in order to bear with them.

"We have to do with twenty or thirty
Nations, all different in language, customs,
53

The Sault and Its People

and Policy. We have to bear everything
from their bad humor and their brutality, in
order to win them by gentleness and affec-
tion. One must make himself, in some sort,
a Savage with these Savages, and lead a Sav-
age's life with them ; and live sometimes on
a moss that grows on the Bocks, sometimes
on pounded fishbones, — a substitute for flour,
— and sometimes on nothing, — passing three
or four days without eating, as they do,
whose stomachs are inured to these hard-
ships. But they also eat without inconve-
nience, in a single day, enough for a week,
when they have an abundance of game or
of fish. Fathers Claude Allo6z and Louys
Nicolas have passed through these trials;
and if penances and mortifications contribute
greatly to the conversion of Souls, it can be
said that they lead a life more austere than
that of the greatest Penitents of the Thebaid,
and yet do not cease to occupy themselves
indefatigably in their Apostolic functions.
These are: Baptizing the children, teaching
the Adults, comforting the sick and prepar-
ing them for Heaven, overthrowing Idolatry,
and making the utterance of their message
59

Father Marquette

resound to the extremities of this end of the
World.

" Father Jacques Marquette went to their
aid, with our Brother Louys le Boeme; and
we hope the sweat of these brave Mis-
sionarieSy which is watering those lands, will
render them fertile for Heaven. Within a
year they have Baptized eighty children,
of whom several are in Paradise. That
mitigates all their hardships, and fortifies
them to undergo all the labors of that
Mission."

Father Dablon, a veteran from the Iro-
quois country, arrived at the Sault in the
summer of 1669, to succeed AUouez as su-
perior of the Ottawa mission. After a year's
experience in the Lake Superior country,
Dablon wrote to Le Mercier, and his letter
appears in the Relation of 1669-70. It will
interest us to read some extracts therefrom,
for by this means we shaU learn something
more of the life which Father Marquette had
been leading during his year at the Sault,
and the sort of people among whom his lines
were cast.

Here is a graphic word-picture of the
60

The Sauk and Its People

Sault itself) and the Indians who assembled
there:

^^What is commonly called the Sault is
not properly a Sault, or a very high water-
fall, but a very violent current of waters
from Lake Superior, — ^which, finding them-
selves checked by a great niunber of rocks
that dispute their passage, form a dangerous
cascade of half a league in width, all these
waters descending and plunging headlong to-
gether, as if by a flight of stairs, over the
rocks which bar the whole river.

'^ It is three leagues below Lake Superior,
and twelve leagues above the Lake of the
Hurons, this entire extent making a beauti-
ful river, cut up by many Islands, which di-
vide it and' increase its width in some places
so that the eye cannot reach across. It flows
very gently through almost its entire course,
being difficult of passage only at the Sault

^^It is at the foot of these rapids, and
even amid these boiling waters, that exten-
sive fishing is carried on, from Spring until
Winter, of a kind of fish found usually only
ii^ Lake Superior and Lake Huron. It is
called in the native language Atticameg, and

Father Marquette

in ours * whitefish,' because in truth it is very
white; and it is most excellent, so that it fur-
nishes food, ahnost by itself, to the greater
part of all these peoples.

"Dexterity and strength are needed for
this kind of fishing; for one must stand up-
right in a bark Canoe, and there, among the
whirlpools, with muscles tense, thrust deep
into the water a rod, at the end of which is
fastened a net made in the form of a pocket,
into which the fish are made to enter. One
must look for them as they glide between
the Bocks, pursue them when they are seen;
and, when they have been made to enter the
net, raise them with a sudden strong pull
into the canoe. This is repeated over and
over again, six or seven large fish being
taken each time, until a load of them is ob-
tained.

" Not all persons are fitted for this fish-
ing; and sometimes those are found who, by
the exertion they are forced to make, over-
turn the Canoe, for want of possessing suf-
ficient skill and experience.

" This convenience of having fish in such
quantities that one has only to go and draw
62

The Sauk and Its People

them out of the water, attracts the surround-
ing Nations to the spot during the Summer.
These people, being wanderers, without fields
and without com, and living for the most
part only by fishing, find here the means to
satisfy their wants; and at the same time
we embrace the opportunity to instruct them
and train them in Christianity during their
sojourn in this place.

"Therefore we have been obliged to es-
tablish here a permanent Mission, which we
call sainte Marie du Sault, which is the cen-
ter for the others, as we are here surrounded
by different Nations, of which the following
are those which sustain relations to the place,
repairing hither to live on its fish.

" The principal and native Inhabitants of
this district are those who call themselves
Pahouitingwdch Iriniy and whom the French
call Saulteurs [Ojibwas], because it is they
who live at the Sault as in their own Coun-
try, the others being there only as borrow-
ers. They comprise only a hundred and fifty
souls, but have united themselves with three
other Nations which number more than five
hundred and fifty persons, to whom they

Father Marquette

have, as it were, made a cession of the rights
of their native Country; and so these live
here permanently, except the time when they
are out hunting. Next come those who are
called the Nouquet, who extend toward the
South of Lake Superior, whence they take
their origin; and the Outohibous, together
with the Marameg, toward the North of the
same Lake, which region they regard as their
own proper Country,

^^ Besides these four Nations there are
seven others dependent on this Mission. The
people called Achiligouiane, the Amicoures,
and the Mississague fish here, and hunt on
the Islands and in the regions round about
Lake Huron; they number more than four
hundred souls.

"Two other Nations, to the number of
five hundred souls, — entirely nomadic, and
with no fixed abode, — ^go towards the lands
of the North to hunt during the Winter, and
return hither to fish during the Summer.

"There remain six other Nations, who

are either people from the North Sea, as the

Guilistinons [Crees] and the Ovenibigonc

[Winnebagoes], or wanderers in the regions

The Sault and Its People

aronnd that same North Sea, — ^the greater
part of them having been driven out of their
Country by famine, and repairing hither
from time to time to enjoy the abundance of
fish here/'

And then the writer goes on at much
length to say that the missionaries have re-
solved to make, in the near future, an expe-
dition to Hudson Bay, chiefly to find, if pos-
sible, a supposed waterway leading to Asia.
Like other citizens of New France, the Jes-
uits were always eager for exploration, and
the vague reports which the Indians brought
from the extreme north quickened their im-
aginations. Joliet and Marquette's discov-
ery of the Mississippi, soon after this, turned
their attention toward the south; although
thirteen years later (1686) one of their num-
ber did reach Hudson Bay in the company
of French soldiers who went thither to drive
away the encroaching English.

From the earliest period of the Jesuit
missions, the wandering habit of the Indians
prevented the missionaries from obtaining
a deep hold on the people, particularly the
young ; efforts were therefore made through-
• 65

Father Marquette

out many years, on the lower St. Lawrence
Biver, to gather the savages into villages,
called " reductions/' where they could prac-
tise agriculture and be under the constant
supervision and teaching of the priests. This
was not possible at the Sault, but Father
Dablon writes:

"To render them more stationary, we
have fixed our abode here, where we cause
the soil to be tilled, in order to induce them
by our example to do the same ; and in this
several have already begun to imitate us.

" Moreover, we have had a Chapel erect-
ed, and have taken care to adorn it, going
further in this than one would dare promise
himself in a Country so destitute of all
things. We there administer Baptism to
children as weU as Adults, with all the cere-
monies of the Church ; and admonish the new
Christians during the holy Sacrifice of the
Mass. The old men attend on certain days
to hear the word of God, and the children
gather there every day to learn the Prayers
and the Catechism.''

CHAPTBE Vm

AT LA POINTB MISSION

Near the southwest comer of Lake Su-
perior there is a deep notch cut in the line
of shore.^ This arm of the great lake has
from the earliest historic times been known
as Chequamegon Bay. To the east of the
bay, a natural breakwater separating it from
the outer sea, lies a narrow spit of sand and
gravel some six miles long, called by the
French, from its shape, " La Pointe ; " upon
the north several rocky, wooded islands, the
Apostles group, hem in Chequamegon and
serve as a windbreak; the western shores
are often steep cliffs of brown sandstone,
crowned with a dark forest of pine. This
graceful land-locked harbor, in size about
twelve miles long by five wide, is one of the
beauty-spots of the western waters.

To the shores of Chequamegon numerous
Indian tribes habitually resorted, especially
in the fishing seasons; partly because here,

Father Marquette

as at the Sault, fish were unusually plentiful,
but also because the bay was isolated and
seemed to afford a secure refuge against the
Iroquois of the East and the Sioux of the
West Here, too, were portiyge trails lead-
ing over to the headwaters of several south-
flowing streams — ^the St, Croix, Black, Chip-
pewa, and Wisconsin Rivers; and we shall
see that at Chequamegon Bay Marquette
met Indians from the Mississippi, which is
not far distant to the southwest, and gained
his first information regarding the great
waterway with which his name will forever
be associated. When the Hurons fled before
the Iroquois raids in Huronia, they first tar-
ried at the straits of Mackinac. But here
the Iroquois discovered them, and, with Ot-
tawas and Ojibwas from the Sault de Ste.
Marie, they dispersed as far northward as
Point Keweenaw, on Lake Superior. Still
fearing the Iroquois, who speedily ascer-
tained their whereabouts, they retreated into
Wisconsin; finally, after many adventures,
settling upon an island in the Mississippi
River, a few miles above Lake Pepin — oppo-
site the present Red Wing, Minnesota. The

At La Pointe Mission

SiouXy in whose country they now were,
treated them with marked hospitality, which
they repaid with such insolence that their
hosts turned upon them and they were
ohliged again to flee. The majority of the
Hnrons hid themselves in the forest npon
the headwaters of the Black Biver; we have
seen that, in trying to reach them, Father
Menard lost his life. The Ottawas and the
remaining Hnrons fled to the fishing-ground
of Ohequamegon Bay, whence, in case of at-
tack, they could readily escape into the al-
most inaccessihle swamps lying just over the
watershed to the southward.

So far as we know, the first white men
to visit Ohequamegon Bay were Badisson
and Groseilliers, two French fur-traders in
whose company poor Father Menard had
traveled as far as Keweenaw Bay. The
traders, in their hark canoes laden with
goods, had pushed on to Ohequamegon, and
there (in the autumn of 1659) huilt a little
log fort to protect themselves and their
wares. After trading with the Indians far
and near — exchanging guns, hatchets, ket-
tles, and trinkets of glass, silver, and hrass,
69

Father Marquette

for the skins of fur-bearing animals — ^they
made long expeditions into the wilderness^
going as far into the northwest as Lake As-
siniboine. It is thought by some historians
thaty four years before this (in 1655 ), upon
a previous visit to central Wisconsin, they
discovered the Mississippi Biver — eighteen
years before Joliet and Marquette; but con-
cerning this we shall, in a subsequent chap-
ter, have more to say.

The place where Badisson and Groseil-
liers built their log hut, generally considered
as the first dwelling erected by white men
on the shores of Lake Superior, appears, so
far as we can now judge, to have been upon
the mainland, between the modem towns of
Ashland and Washburn. Six years later
(October, 1665) Father AUouez came to Che-
quamegon to open a mission to the Indians.
He chose his site not far from the spot where
the fur-traders' hut had been erected — pos-
sibly at the mouth of Vanderventers Creek.
The long, sandy breakwater which guards
the bay to the east is a conspicuous object
in the view, and led AUouez to name his mis-
sion and the locality ^^La Pointe du Saint

At La Pointe Mission

Esprit^' (Point of the Holy Spirit). This
name came in time to be shortened to La
Pointe, commonly used to represent the en-
tire region around Chequamegon Bay. We
also shall find it convenient to adopt the
term in this sense.

When AUonez arrived at La Pointe, he
found encamped there representatives of
several friendly tribes — Ojibwas, Pottawat-
tomies, Eickapoos, Sacs, and Foxes, all of
them Wisconsin savages ; besides these, Hu-
rons and Ottawas, who had fled in droves
from the east and the south before the ad-
vance of their Iroquois tormentors; and
Miamis and Illinois, who came chiefly to
trade. On or near the shores of the bay
were five villages, whose people lived chiefly
" on fish and com, and rarely by hunting."
Fifty villages, far and near, and a popula-
tion af about fifteen hundred souls were,
however, connected with the mission, and
among all of these the Jesuits were expected
to labor.

Allouez at once attracted large congrega-
tions of natives, who, bedecked in paint and
feathers, and wearing robes of fur, assem-
71

Father Marquette

bled out of curiosity to see and hear the
strange black gown. But he was soon sadly
treated by them, and won the hearts of only
a small band of followers. For four years
he labored alone in this wide wilderness, hop-
ing against hope, varying the monotony of
his dreary task by occasional canoe voyages
to Quebec, distant over a thousand miles by
water, to report to his superior-general.

Finally, Allouez becoming discouraged, it
was thought best to send him to found a mis-
sion on the Fox River, near Green Bay,
among more favorable surroundings, and to
replace him at La Pointe by a more youth-
ful and less jaded missionary. Marquette
was accordingly, upon the arrival of Dablon
at the Sault, sent to relieve Allouez at this
the farthest western outpost of French influ-
ence in North America. It proved a forlorn
hope worthy the bravery of any of the sol-
diers who, in olden times, went forth to battle
from the creaking gates of Laon.

It was with no trembling that young Fa-
ther Marquette set forth upon his hazard-
ous enterprise. Here, rather, was at last
what he had long prayed for. We find in his

At La Pointe Mission

report to Father le Mercier, published in
the Eelation of 1669-70, a subdued note of
triumph at this fulfihnent of his ambition.
It is an interesting letter, filled with minute
particulars of the people and of his work
among them, written after a winter of ex-
perience. Too long to repeat here in full,
we may, however, profit from a few extracts
— remembering that in those early days
there was no regular method of spelling In-
dian names, the missionaries simply giving
them in a crude fashion as they were pro-
nounced. Indeed, spelling, punctuation, and
use of capitals, in either French or English,
were not then, as they are to-day, regulated
by well-established rules.

Marquette says that, coming direct from
the Sault, he arrived at La Pointe upon the
thirteenth of September (1669), after "a
Voyage of a month amid snow and ice, which
blocked our passage, and amid almost con-
stant dangers of death;" which serves to
illustrate the earliness of the winter season
in this northern region. He went at once to
visit the Indians in the neighboring clear-
ings. " The Hurons, to the number of four

Father Marquette

or five hundred souls^ almost all baptized,
still preserve a little Christianity. Some of
the chief men, assembled in a council, were
very glad to see me at first; but when I in-
formed them that I did not yet know their
language perfectly, and that no other father
was coming to the place, — both because they
had all gone to the Iroquois; and because
Father Allouez, who understood them thor-
oughly, had been unwilling to return to them
for this Winter, because they did not take
enough interest in Prayer, — they acknowl-
edged that they were well deserving of this
punishment. Since then they have spoken
of the matter during the Winter, .and re-
solved to do better, as they have declared
to me."

Some of the other tribes, however, he
thinks " very far from the Kingdom of God.
. . . They turn Prayer to ridicule, and
scarcely will they hear us speak of Christi-
anity; they are proud, and without intelli-
gence.'^ In such cases he contents himself
with baptizing the sick and dying.

The father relates many curious incidents
of his attempts, not always successful, to

At La Pointe Mission

combat the idolatries of the savages. One
of the clans of Ottawas, it appears, had in a
formal council of the tribe promised Father
Allouez to receive the Gospel. To them Mar-
quette promptly went upon his arrival, and
thus tells of his reception : " All the Chris-
tians were in their fields, harvesting the In-
dian com. They heard me with pleasure
when I told them that I came to la pointe
only out of consideration for them and for
the Hurons; that they should never be for-
saken, but cherished more warmly than all
the other nations; and that they had only
one common interest with the French. I had
the consolation of seeing their fondness for
prayer, and the great account they make of
being Christians; I baptized the new-bom
babes, and visited the Elders, whom I found
all favorably disposed; and when the Chief
had permitted that a dog should be sus-
pended from a pole near his Cabin, — a kind
of sacrifice that the Savages make to the Sun,
— and I had told him that was not right, he
went himself at once and threw it down. A
sick man, instructed but not yet baptized,
begged me to grant him that grace, or else

Father Marquette

to remain near him, because he did not wish
to employ the juggler for his cure, and he
was afraid of Hell-fire. I prepared him for
Baptism, and was often in his Cabin, the joy
that he felt in consequence partly restoring
his health. He thanked me for the care that
I had taken of him, and soon after, saying
that I had given him his life, he gave me a
present of a slave that had been brought to
him from the Illinois, two or three months
before.''

Previous to his starting for Chequame-
gon, Marquette had received orders to es-
tablish a mission among the Illinois Indians
as soon as he could in turn be relieved. This
fact induces him to learn whatever he can
concerning them from the representatives of
the tribe at La Pointe. In this letter, there-
fore, we obtain our first glimpse of the peo-
ple among whom Marquette was soon to pass
his last days. The Illinois, he says, ^^are
distant from la pointe thirty days' journey
by land, by a very difficult route." They
" are mainly gathered in two Villages, con-
taining more than eight or nine thousand
souls."

At La Pointe Mission

The Illinois are worshipers of the son
and of thunder^ but he thinks them well in-
clined to Christianity; for Father Allonez
had exercised considerable influence over
those of the tribe who had heard him at La
Pointe. " Those whom I have seen," writes
Marquette, " seem to be of a tolerably good
disposition « . . and they promise me to
embrace Christianity, and observe all that I
shall say in the Country. With this purpose
in view, the Outaouaks gave me a young man
who had lately come from the Illinois, and
he furnished me the rudiments of the lan-
guage, during the leisure allowed me by the
Savages of la Pointe in the course of the
Winter. One can scarcely understand it, al-
though it is somewhat like the Algonquin;
still I hope, by the Grace of God, to under-
stand and be understood, if God in his good-
ness lead me to that Coimtry/'

Then he alludes, but modestly and without
complaint, to some of the disagreeable fea-
tures of missionary life, showing that he had
a clear head, and was not beguiled by these
fair promises of the savages from the south:
^^ One must not hope that he can avoid Cross-
77

Father Marquette

es in any of our Missions; and the best
means to live there contentedly is not to fear
them. • • • After the fashion of the sav-
ages, the Illinois wish for us in order that
we may share their miseries with them, and
suffer every imaginable hardship of bar-
barism. They are lost sheep, that must be
sought for among the thickets and woods."

The Illinois, he tells us, " journey always
by land; they raise Indian com, which they
have in great abundance, have squashes as
large as those of France, and have a great
many roots and fruits. There is fine hunt-
ing there of Wild Cattle, Bears, Stags, Tur-
keys, Ducks, Bustards, Pigeons, and Cranes.
The people quit their Village some time in
the year, to go all together to the places
where the animals are killed, and better to
resist the enemy who come to attack them.
They believe that, if I go to them, I shall
establish peace everywhere, that they will
always live in one place, and that it will be
only the young men who will go hunting."

And now we come to his first mention of
the Mississippi Biver, which henceforth be-
came the goal of his ambition: ^^When the
78

At La Pointe Mission

niinois come to la Pointey they cross a great
river which is nearly a league in width, flows
from North to South, and to snch a distance
that the Illinois, who do not know what a
Canoe is, have not yet heard any mention of
its month. They simply know that there are
some very large Nations lower down than
themselves, some of whom, towards the East-
Sontheast of their Country, raise two crops
of Indian com in a year. A Nation that they
call Chaonanon [Shawnee] came to see them
last Summer; and this young man who has
heen given me, and is teaching me the lan-
guage, saw them. They are laden with glass
Beads, which shows that they have communi-
cation with Europeans. They had come over-
land a journey of nearly thirty days, before
reaching the Country. It is hard to believe
that that great Biver discharges its waters
in Virginia, and we think rather that it has
its mouth in California. If the Savages
who promise to make me a Canoe do not
break their word to me, we shall explore this
Biver as far as we can, with a Frenchman
and this young man who was given me, who
knows some of those languages and has a

Father Marquette

facility for learning the others. We shall
visit the Nations dwelling there^ in order to
open the passage to such of our Fathers as
have been awaiting this good fortune for so
long a time. This discovery will give us full
knowledge either of the South Sea or of the
Western Sea."

In the paragraph just quoted above, we
obtain a glimpse of the hazy notions which
learned people entertained at that time con-
cerning the interior of our continent. It will
be remembered that Columbus died in the
belief that he had reached the eastern shores
of India. Even when it was discovered that
a continent lay between Europe and India,
navigators thought that it could be but a nar-
row body of land. Jean Nicolet, the explor-
ing agent of Governor Champlain of New
France, visited the West in 1634, only thirty-
five years before Marquette's letter, and sup-
posing that he was to meet Chinamen in Wis-
consin, prepared a gown of Chinese damask
in which to array himself for the ceremony.
Marquette himself thought that the ^^ South
Sea '^ or the " Western Sea '* — as the Pacific
Ocean was then variously called by the
80

At La Pointe Mission

French — ^was not far distant from Lake Su-
perior. Some geographers of his time had
claimed that the Mississippi flowed south-
eastward and emptied into the Atlantic
Ocean through Virginia; others, that it
poured into the South Sea, or Pacific,
through California, which was believed to
be much nearer than it finally proved to be.
To the South Sea theory Marquette leaned;
but the South Sea into which the Mississippi
was found to flow is a sea of which the good
father had but scanty knowledge — ^the Gulf
of Mexico — or the " Gulf of Florida,'' as some
of his contemporaries called it.

We learn from this letter of the mission-
ary to his superior many interesting things
about the brown children of the forest whom
he meets at La Pointe — ^most of them un-
favorable, a few praiseworthy. There are,
he hears, nations living pn the Ohio ^^ who use
wooden Canoes." The Illinois " are war-
riors and take a great many Slaves, whom
they trade with the Outaouaks for Muskets,
Powder, Kettles, Hatchets, and Knives.''
The Sioux, a large nation who live to the
southwest of La Pointe, ^' are the Iroquois of
7 81

Father Marquette

this coimtry ; " their villages are numerous,
and " extend over a great deal of territory*
Their manners and customs are quite ex-
traordinary: they chiefly adore the Calumet
[pipe of peace], and say not a word at their
feasts ; and, when any stranger arrives, they
feed him with a wooden fork, as one would
a child. All the nations of the Lake make
war on them, but with little success. They
have the wild oats, use little Canoes, and
keep their word inviolate. ... I could wish
that all the Nations had as much love for
God as these people have fear of the French;
Christianity would soon be flourishing.'^
The Assiniboines told him of Lake Winne-
peg, and reported seeing Frenchmen there
in canoes with sails. The Crees dwell to the
northwest of La Pointe, ^^ are always in the
woods, and have only the Bow to live by."

It is fortunate for us that the Jesuit mis-
sionaries were obliged by a rule of their
order to keep diaries of their work and notes
of their impressions of what was seen and
heard. To that rule we owe such letters as
this one by Father Marquette. Were it not
for tiiese we should have but imperfect

At La Pointe Mission

knowledge of how unwearyingly the mission-
ary of La P<»nte toiled for the conversion
of the heathen, or what sort of folk were
the strange tribes to whom he ministered,
at the time when first they came nnder the
influence of white men.

CHAPTER IX

LAKE SUPERIOR ABANDONED

The French, in the course of their long
and hazardous explorations throughout the
interior of our continent, were not only en-
gaged in the fur trade and in converting the
savages. As opportunity arose, they were
seeking deposits of lead, iron, copper, and
the more valuable metals. We find in the
Jesuit Relations numerous references to this
pursuit of new mines. The missionaries
were themselves much interested in the
search, especially for copper, which was
then scarcer than it is to-day.

In the Relations for 1669-70, Father le
Mercier has an entire chapter " On the cop-
per mines which are found in Lake Supe-
rior." We now know that the great deposits
of copper in this region lie upon the south-
eastern shore of the lake, in upper Michigan,
and on Isle Royale, near the north shore.
84

Lake Superior Abandoned

But in those early days there was much un-
certainty as to their location.

The Indians were used to mining copper
in a rude way, chiefly on Isle Royale ; from it
they made axes, knives, spear-heads, beads,
and other weapons, utensils, and ornaments.
The chance visitor to lonely Isle Royale may
to this day discover, scattered about in the
pine forests and half -filled with the d^ris
of two or more centuries, hundreds of the
deep pits from which brown men of old ex-
tracted their copper ore. Clean one of these
pits of its rubbish, and there will be brought
to light the rude ladders and stone tools of
the ancient miners, and possibly evidences of
the fires which they built to soften the ore
before breaking it from the veins.

Owing to the wandering habits of the sav-
ages and their custom of bartering goods
with other tribes, articles of copper became
distributed all over the Northwest, although
mostly in Wisconsin. White men finding
these articles, also pieces of "float copper,^^
borne by glaciers to far-distant points, were
at first misled as to the whereabouts of the
mines. The ordinary Indian, unless he him-

Father Marquette

self lived in the copper country, had very
little notion of where it was ; then again, the
Indians who did know would not say much
about it, because they believed that certain
powerful spirits lived in the ore veins who
would punish them for telling the palefaces
where they dwelt. It is small wonder that
the Jesuit fathers encountered difficulties in
seeking mines.

Le Mercier writes that the missionaries
have at last discovered that Isle Royale — ^he
calls it the " isle of Minong " — is particularly
renowned among the Indians for its copper
mines. ^^ The Savages say that it is a float-
ing Island, which is sometimes afar off,
sometimes near, according to the winds that
push it and drive it in all directions.*' None
of the missionaries have yet reached it, but
hope to begin discoveries there in the follow-
ing smnmer, ^'when we go in search of lost
and wandering sheep all through the region
of that great Lake." As for the floating-
island theory, it is shrewdly guessed that the
^^ mists with which it is often laden, by be-
coming thin or dense under the Sun's rays,
make the Island appear to the observer some-

Lake Superior Abandoned

times very near, and other times farther
away/^

But the promised voyage of discovery to
the mysterious copper mines of Isle Boyale
could not be made. An event was happen-
ing, at about the time this Relation was be-
ing written, that meant the death-blow to
Jesuit missionary efforts on Lake Superior,
from La Pointe to the Sault. Father Da-
blon, then superior of the Ottawa missions,
thus describes the catastrophe in the Rela-
tion for 1670-71 :

" These regions of the North have their
Iroquois, as do those of the South. They
are a certain people called the Nadouessi
[Sioux], who, as they are naturally warlike,
have made themselves feared by all their
neighbors ; and, although they use only bows
and arrows, they yet handle them with such
skill and readiness as to fill the air with
shafts in an instant — especially when, like
the Parthians, they face about in their flight;
for then they discharge their arrows so rap-
idly as to render themselves not less formi-
dable when fleeing than when attacking.

'^ They live near and on the banks of that
87

Father Marquette

great river called Missisipi, of which farther
mention will be made. They comprise no
fewer than fifteen Villages of considerable
size, and yet know not what it is to till the
soil for the purpose of sowing seed They
are content with a kind of nwrsh rye which
we call wild oats, which the prairies furnish
them naturally— they dividing the latter
among themselves, and each gathering his
own harvest separately, without encroaching
on the others.

<<They are sixty leagues from the head
of Lake superior in a Westerly direction,
and well-nigh in the center of the Nations
of the West— with all of whom they are at
war, in consequence of a general League
formed against themselves as against a com-
mon foe.

"They speak a Language peculiar to
themselves, and entirely distinct from that of
llie Algonquins and Hurons, whom they far
exceed in magnanimity — ^being often content
with the glory of winning a victory and send-
ing back free and uninjured the prisoners
taken by them in battle.

"Our Outaouacs and Hurons of point
88

Lake Superior Abandoned

saint Esprit had thus far maintained a sort
of peace with them; bnt as their relations
became embroiled during the past winter,
some murders even being committed on each
side^ our Savages had reason to fear the
storm might burst over them, and deemed it
safer to leave their location."

Marquette^ not knowing the Sioux lan-
guage, had sent religious pictures to these
fierce but magnanimous warriors of the
West. B^ this means he sought, says the
Relation, ''to convey to them some idea of
our Religion and teach them through their
eyes." Upon the breaking out of the quar-
rel, the Sioux, with that formal dignity in
which Indians delight, returned to the mis-
sionary the pictures which he had given
them, and then declared a general war
against the people of La Pointe.

The long peace had encouraged the sev-
eral tribes represented in the numerous vil-
lages of the La Pointe neighborhood to culti-
vate extensive fields. Before the coming of
white men, most of the tribes east of the Mis-
sissippi River— unlike the Sioux, concerning
whom Dablon writes — had large planting

Father Marquette

grounds, their principal crops being maize
(Indian com) and pumpkins ; to which they
were enabled, according to locality, to add
wild berries, nuts, wild rice (or oats), and
roots; while occasional hunting and fishing
trips, often occupying much of their time,
varied the monotony of village life, and pro-
duced additional food and raiment for their
stores.

But the fur-trader changed all this. The
Indian, who was fond of barter, was now en-
couraged to kill animals for their furs alone.
This brought welcome excitement; and the
skins he could exchange for weapons, uten-
sils, clothing, and ornaments, all of which he
had before that laboriously made for him-
self. Unfortunately, the trader also sold to
them intoxicating liquors, and thus a new
vice, the cause of many of their future trou-
bles, was introduced among a simple and im-
pressionable people. This feature of the
fur trade was sharply attacked by the Jes-
uits; but the traders were so strong that
they were able to overcome the opposition
of the church, and to fight back so effectively
that at times the missionaries found them-

Lake Superior Abandoned

selves in much trouble with the officials of
New France, nearly all of whom were in
some way concerned in commerce with the
Indians. The result of the fur trade was
soon to convert the Indian from a village
agriculturist into a wandering hunter, to
cause him to forget how to make his own
materials, and for these to rely almost wholly
upon the white man. Formerly independent,
he now became a dependent — the first step
in his downfall. The Indians of La Pointe
lived so far away from the track of the trad-
ers that they seldom saw them; hence they
were still attached to their villages and fields
and their old ways of life.

It was thought impossible, in this fateful
spring of 1671, for the La Pointe savages,
who had again been the aggressors, to over-
come the threatened onslaught of the indig-
nant Sioux. A retreat was decided upon,
and we may well be sure that at first there
was much anxiety as to where the new haven
or refuge should be.

To go farther westward would be fleeing
into the lair of the lion; eastward were the
Iroquois, who but a few years before had

Father Marquette

ravaged with firebrand and tomahawk the
country from central New York to the mouth
of Green Bay^ and through Illinois as far
as the Mississippi. But of late the fangs
of the Iroquois had been somewhat dulled by
the French; a peace had been signed with
them, and for the time being they were no
longer formidable.

Forty miles or so southward was the
rocky rim of the Lake Superior basin; be-
yond it vast areas of tamarack swamps, the
headwaters of rivers which, flowing over
swift rapids and through long reaches under
dark, overhanging pines, finally emptied
their floods into the great Mississippi — a
region abounding in bad spirits, fierce human
enemies, and beasts of prey. To the Missis-
sippi Marquette himself would have been
glad to go ; but the trails thither were guard-
ed by hostile Sioux, and there was naught
now to be gained by placing his head in the
lion's mouth.

The Ottawas determined to return to
their old planting-grounds on Manitoulin
Island, in tiie northern waters of Lake Hu-
ron. But the Hurons, now the most numer-

Lake Superior Abandoned

ous of the La Pointe Indians, tamed their
thonghts toward an earlier home of theirs,
where they had stopped for a time in their
flight from the Iroquois, who had, however,
followed them thither and driven them
farther westward. This was the island of
Michillimackinac, fifty miles to the southwest
of the Sault, as the crow flies, upon a strait
where the waters of Lake Michigan, sharply
turning to the east, run swift to mingle with
the Lake of the Hurons. The climate was
mild, fish were plentiful, the sandy soil was
adapted to growing maize; it was upon the
path of the Illinois and Wisconsin tribes who
went by waiter to Montreal and Quebec, and
was isolated from the Sioux; and should the
Iroquois ever again take the war-path and
venture thus far, their canoes might from
some bold headland be seen for twenty miles
away over the green waters to the east, and
time be gained for fight or flight.

This island to which the Hurons had de-
cided to fly, and whither Marquette was to
accompany them, had already been selected
by the Jesuits as a mission station. Indeed,
a mission called St. Ignace had been opened

Father Marquette

there in the year before Marquette's arrival-
Father Dablon says in the Relation for the
year:

*^ MissilimaMnac is an Island of note in
these regions. It is a league in diameter,
and has snch high, steep rocks in some places
that it can be seen at a distance of more than
twelve leagues.

*^ It is situated exactly in the strait con-
necting the Lake of the Hurons and that of
the Illinois [Michigan], and forms the key
and the door, so to speak, for all the peoples
of the South, as does the Sault for those of
the North; for in these regions there are only
those two passages by water for very many
Nations, who must seek one or the other of
the two if they wish to visit the French set-
tlements.

"This circumstance makes it very easy
bolli to instruct these poor people when they
pass, and to gain ready access to their coun-
tries.

" This spot is the most noted in all these

regions for its abundance of fish, since, in

Savage parlance, this is its native country.

No other place, however it may abound in

Lake Superior Abandoned

fish, is properly its abode, which is only in
the neighborhood of Missilimakinac.

"In fact, besides the fish common to all
the other Nations, as the herring, carp, pike,
golden fish, whitefish, and sturgeon, there are
here found three kinds of trout : one, the com-
mon kind; the second, larger, being three feet
in length and one in width; and the third,
monstrous, for no other word expresses it
— being moreover so fat that the Savages,
who delight in grease, have difficulty in eat-
ing it. Now they are so abundant that one
man will pierce with his javelin as many as
40 or 50, under the ice, in three hours' time.''

Father Dablon then proceeds to state that
both the island of Michillimackinac and the
mainland near-by were once largely popu-
lated by several tribes of Indians who had
been driven westward by the Iroquois; and
thither came, in winter, the Indians from the
Sault to fish in the deeper waters, for in that
season fishing in St. Marys Biver was im-
practicable. He says that it is reported to
him that a good many years ago, before
white men penetrated to the country, there
were no less than thirty villages, apparently

Father Marquette

on llie mainland to the south, whidi ^' had in-
trenched themselves in a post a league and
a half in circumference, when the Iroquois
• • . came and defeated them."

"In short," says Father Dablon, "the
abundance of fish, and the excellence of the
soil for raising Indian com, have ever
proved a very powerful attraction for the
tribes of these regions, the greater number
of whom live only on fish, and some of them
on Indian com. Hence it is that many of
these same tribes, seeing the apparent sta-
bility of the peace with the Iroquois, are
turning their eyes toward so advantageous
a location as this, with the intention of re-
turning hither, each to its own country, in
imitation of those who have already made
such a beginning on the Islands of Lake
Huron. The lake, by this means, will be peo-
pled with nations almost from one end to the
other — ^which would be very desirable for
facilitating the instruction of these tribes, as
we would not be obliged, in that case, to go
in quest of them two and three hundred
leagues on these great Lakes, with inconceiv-
able danger and fatigue on our part."

Lake Superior Abandoned

To their old homes upon the islands of
Manitoulin and Michillimackinac, therefore,
the people of La Pointe determined to go.
Doubtless the time for deliberation was
brief. The missionary's presents to the
Sioux had been returned, and war had been
declared against his erring but still beloved
people. Although the enemy magnanimous-
ly gave them time to depart in peace/ to
tarry long would be but to invite destruction.

Runners were sent out through the sev-
eral villages. Stores of dried food were
gathered. Hundreds of birch-bark canoes
were constructed upon the shores of Che-
quamegon Bay. The conical wigwams, cov-
ered with great sheets of birch-bark, were no
doubt allowed to remain, as being too bulky
for the slender craft; but we may reasonably
suppose that the skins and rush miats which
served as walls and partitions for many,
were carefully bound into bales and placed
in the canoes, along with food, clothing, and
the tools and implements of agriculture, the
chase, and war.

Throughout this brief and busy season of
preparation, we may, in imagination^ see the
8 97

Father Marquette

black-robed hero of this life-story, with iron
will but delicate physique and spiritual f ace,
passing from village to village, giving good
counsel of every sort; by brave word and
sympathetic glance cheering the faint-heart-
ed, ministering to the sick, baptizing chil-
dren, giving such practical instruction as he
might, and so far as possible helping in the
hurried work.

When at last the fleet of canoes was packed
and ready, and the growing crops destroyed
lest they give sustenance to the enemy, no
doubt the missionary, surrounded by his
little band of French and Indian followers,
held farewell service in the little bark hut
which had served him for a chapel, fervently
praying for the day when La Pointe might
again be the center of christianizing influ-
ences, even to taming the hearts of the ma-
rauding Sioux.

There is no doubt that, as the frail flotilla,
packed with crouching savages and their
rude belongings, cautiously crept along the
base of the brownfitone bluffs of Lake Supe-
rior upon its long and painful journey of
five hundred miles, the soldier of the cross,

Lake Superior Abandoned

pausing in his paddle-stroke, raised a hand
in benediction as the mission site, conse-
crated by the devotion of Allouez and him-
self, sank from view below the western hori-
zon. More tearful still would his farewell
have been could he but have foreseen that
never again, in the history of New France,
would a Christian missionary set foot upon
the forest-mantied shores of Chequamegon
Bay; for now was liie once hopeful field of
Lake Superior abandoned for over a hundred
years to the fur-trader and the savage.

CHAPTER X

ABBIYAL AT MACKINAO

Point Kbweenaw, whidi projects nearly
a hundred miles into the waters of Lake Su-
perior from the southern shore, would have
greatly increased the distance between La
Pointe and the Sault had early navigators
been obliged to paddle around it; but this
bulky peninsula is almost bisected by a chain
of lakes and rivers, thus making the crossing
a light task for canoemen. This short-cut
route had been followed by Badisson and
Groseilliers, Menard, and Allouez, and by the
Western Indians who came to the Sault to
trade ; and now it was used by the fugitives
from La Pointe. Past the Pictured Bocks,
fantastic in form and color, they wended
their way as wind and weather permitted.
Each night, or while storms raged upon the
deep, they camped upon open stony beaches
or nestled in deep ravines ; occasionally fish-
ing and hunting, to replenish their slender
100

Arrival at Mackinac

stores. The Indians, after their custom, fre-
quently offered sacrifice to the storm mani-
tou by casting clothing or food into the
waves, amid wild shrieks and the beating of
rude drums by juggling medicine-men. On
such occasions Father Marquette, hastily set-
ting up a rude altar and gathering the faith-
ful about him, offered prayers to the Chris-
tian's God— confident, in his simple faith,
that the fantastic, bigoted medicine-men were
but sorcerers and the agents of the evil one.
Following slowly the curving beach of
Whitefish Bay, they crept cautiously until
the narrowing shores contracted into St.
Marys River, down which sweeps the deep,
dark flood of Superior's overflow, to be
dashed into foam over the rapids of the
Sault.

Here they tarried for a time, for this was
Marquette's old mission home. Father Ga-
briel Driiillettes, one of the oldest of the Jes-
uit missionaries, and Marquette's instructor
at Three Rivers, was now in charge of the
work at the Sault. For over twenty years
had Drflillettes been engaged in ministering
to savages all the way from the Abenakis in
101

Father Marquette

Maine to the Ottawas and Hnrons on Lake
Superior. He is a familiar character in
New England history, because in 1650 he
went as an agent of the French to visit the
Puritans of Eastern Massachusetts, and sug-
gest to them a union between New France
and New England against the Iroquois. The
Puritans were kind to him, for he succeeded
in making an agreeable impression upon
these stanch haters of Catholics; but the
proposed union was not effected.

It strikingly illustrates the daring enter-
prise of the French, in the exploration of the
interior of our continent, when we find the
very Jesuit missionary who had been the
guest of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth,
now manfully laboring among strange tribes
of savages over a thousand miles westward,
while the English missionaries had not yet
ventured more than a hundred miles from
the sea.

At the Sault, Drtiillettes had been quite
successful; he was a good physician, and had
wrought many cures among the Indians, who
accordingly respected his powers. All save
the scheming medicine-men, who were ever
102

Arrival at Mackinac

the enemies of the black robes; for if their
people lost faith in witchcraft, or no longer
worshiped manitons in the olden way, and
preferred white men's remedies to the fool-
eries of magic, then was the trade of the
medicine-man gone, and his power in the vil-
lage departed. But the improvement was
seldom for long. If some one died under the
missionary's treatment, or some disaster
swept over the band, the black robe was in
his turn discredited, and the medicine-man
again in favor, with his nostrums and his
noisy incantations to the spirits of earth and
sky and water.

Finally leaving the Sault, the La Pointe
Indians and their teacher with his French
assistants descended the winding, island-
studded Biver of St. Marys. At its mouth
the little fleet divided into two sections, the
Ottawas proceeding eastward to Manitoulin
Island, where Father Louis Andr^ was
awaiting them; the Hurons paddling west-
ward to their old haunts upon the island of
Michillimackinac, upon which, as stated in
the preceding chapter, St. Ignace mission
had already been established.
103

Father Marquette

It has been held by most historians that
St Ignace mission was always located upon
the mainland^ to the north of the island,
where is now the little city of St. Ignace,
Mich., which contains a monument erected on
the supposed site of the old chapel. The
Jesnit fathers, in writing their letters from
the heart of the American wilderness, were
more particular to record conversions and
other spiritual experiences than to state the
exact localities of their missions. They did
not foresee that their often vague geographi-
cal allusions would cause dispute two centu-
ries later, when antiquarians came to discuss
historic sites.

It is with difficulty that some of the sites
of the early Jesuit missions in New France
can now be established even approximately.
The location of St. Ignace has been among
these puzzles, although not so difficult as
some of them. That the mission was first
upon the island, and probably within the
present village of Mackinac, a careful read-
ing of the Relations should convince any one.
That it was afterward moved to the main-
land, to the St. Ignace of to-day, there can
104

Arrival at Mackinac

be no reasonable doubt; but when and under
what circmnstances we do not know.

It is I'easonable to suppose that this re-
moval took place in the year after Mar-
quette's arrival; and there is abundant
ground for belief that the St. Ignace monu-
menty which is visited each summer by sev-
eral thousands of tourists, represents the
place where stood his little mainland chapel.
Quite likely the island, at first resorted to be-
cause of its safety from attack by foes, was
found too small for the villages and fields of
the Indians who now centered here in large
numbers; and moreover was found difficult
of approach in time of summer storm, or
when the ice was weak in spring and early
winter. The long continuance of peace with
the Iroquois removed for the time all danger
from that quarter, and events proved that
they had made their last attack upon the
tribesmen of these far western waters.

It was probably midsummer when Marr
quette and his Hurons, after slowly thread-
ing their way between the forest-clad islets
which stud the northwest shore of Lake Hu-
ron, finally arrived at the island of Michilli-
106

Father Marquette

mackmac. The scene which greeted them is
one of the most interesting in North America.
The two sharp-pointed peninsulas of
Michigan approach each other from north
and south to within somewhat less than four
miles. Between them lie the straits of
Mackinac — the waters of Lake Michigan
rushing through this narrow, island-deft
passage to join Lake Huron, being increased
about forty miles to the eastward by the out-
flow from Lake Superior. In the center of
the strait, toward its eastern end, rises
Michillimackinac — a word in our day short-
ened to Mackinac — in shape much like a
high-backed turtle, in allusion to which some
scholars suppose that the Indians named the
island. Its southern shore is fringed by
grassy bluffs enclosing a mile or more of peb-
bly beach, backed by a level, fertile strand
upon which Indians had camped and planted
from very early times, and upon which to-
day rests the tourist-resort village of Macki-
nac. From the bluffs above is obtainable a
commanding view of land and water. It is
a strategic point of much importance, at the
junction of three great lakes — for the pos-
106

Arrival at Mackinac

session of which, in the olden days of the
fur trade which centered here lit Mackinac,
England and America came more than once
to blows. Northward the bluffs gradually
descend in graceful undulations and with
curious rock protuberances to the water's
edge — the rocky beach now known as " Brit-
ish Landing.''

Across the intervening four miles of
water the cape of St. Ignace rises, a wide
beach of sand hemmed in by dreary bluffs,
which sometimes are pointed by jagged pil-
lars of stone; while southward across the
strait may be seen the sandy stretch where
is now the village of Mackinaw City, in
whose neighborhood the English buUt their
first fort of logs, a hundred years after Mar-
quette's arrival.

Mackinac Island is a beauty-spot to-day,
even when its bluffs are crowned by ram-
bling hotels and the multifarious summer
homes of wealthy citizens of Chicago, St.
Louis, and Detroit; when the island is trav-
ersed by dusty macadamized drives ; when,
in summer, the wha.rves are lined with noisy,
bulky steam-craft from ports all the way
107

Father Marquette

from Buffalo to Dnluth; when, in winter, ioe-
cmshing ferry-boats transfer railway trains
between Si Ignace and Mackinaw City, and
garish souyenir shops and bawling guides
and cabmen ply their trade among thou-
sands of summer tourists who /'do'' the
island sights while their steamers replenish
stores.

But in the days of good Father Marquette,
Michillimackinac was indeed an earthly
paradise. The sky hereabout was unusually
clear; light breezes, wafting over the wide
waters, brought relief in the warmest days;
the air was freighted with the odor of the
balsam; the island was heavily wooded,
chiefly with cedars, beeches, oaks, and
maples, presenting a pleasing variety of
form and color when seen from the highest
bluffs, which, rising over three hundred feet
above the straits^ gave to the missionary a
far-reaching view of land and water, almost
incomparable.

Eastward, but over the edge of the hori-
zon, his Ottawa friends were encamped upon
Great Manitoulin Island, with Father Andr6
as their priestly counselor. Northeastward,
108

Arrival at Mackinac

a long and tortuous journey by canoe, but
only fifty miles away in a bee-line over the
tops of the trees, he could from his van-
tage-point almost see the Sault, where he had
lately left Father DrfLillettes at his hopeless
but beloved task. But to the west no doubt
his eyes most often wandered. Over the
waters of Lake Michigan he saw in fancy
rise the land of the Winnebagoes, the Potta-
wattomies, and the Mascoutins; the land
where Father Allouez, whom he had suc-
ceeded at La Pointe, was still laboring for
the salvation of forest clans ; the land whence
flowed the Mississippi, upon whose banks he
hoped to discover new nations to whom might
be told the fruitful story of the Cross.

109

CHAPTER XI

A 0TBBNUOU8 LIFE

Thb life of a Jesuit missionary was of
the strenuous sort; there was little time for
dreaming upon hilltops. Fatiier Marquette's
work pressed upon him from every side.
Mackinac Island and the mainland to north
and south were the center of a considerable
Indian population, gathered in villages of a
half-dozen friendly tribes, Hurons and Al-
gonkins. Among them the black-robed man
of Laon journeyed by canoe and on foot,
sometimes making expeditions as far as the
Sault, where in June (1671) the French
agent St Lusson had, with mudi ceremony,
and in the presence of Fathers Dablon, Drftil-
lettes, Allouez, and Andr^, taken possession
of the entire western country.

An Indian village, although no paradise,
is picturesque. Each tribe has its own pe-
culiar style of wigwam ; and Mackinac, lying
on a favorite highway, was much visited by
110

A Strenuous Life

different peoples traveling to and from all
points of the compass, who brought with
them their simple houses; the Relation of
1671-72 refers to the island as "the great
resort of all Nations going to or coming from
the North or the South." But the rude, long
huts of the resident Hurons, sheathed with
bark of cedar, of course prevailed upon the
island beach : a hut housing several families,
each of which huddled around its own fire,
the smoke from which finally found exit
through holes in the roof, after first half-
blinding the savages themselves. A family
had its own platforms on either side of the
fire, with rude bunks above, and supplies of
food and clothing beneath. Partitions there
were, of bark or of furs ; nevertheless there
was little privacy. Pestiferous insects of
many varieties, snarling dogs, crying chil-
dren, quarreling neighbors, the medicine-men
as they sought with barbarous din to drive
bad spirits from the bodies of the sick, and
the almost intolerable smoke, combined, with
the prevalent uncleanliness, to render life
within 4oors a torment. Small wonder is it
that the missionaries dwelt in their own huts
111

Father Marquette

when possible, although ever liable to intm-
sion, and suffering keenly from the general
uproar of the hamlet.

Baptizing infants, attending the aged and
the sick, preaching the gospel as occasion de-
manded, assisting the people at their simple
tasks, teaching them better methods, being
ever on the alert lest wily medicine-men up-
set their best-laid plans, making long and
dangerous trips to distant villages; and all
the while winning their own food from the
water and the forest, mending and often
making their own clothing, and yet never
failing to make note of impressions and ex-
periences for the benefit of their superiors,
who expected regular reports — all this
amply filled the life of Marquette and his
French donnas.

That he was reasonably successful at
Mackinac, as the missionaries measured suc-
cess, is evident from the Relation of 1671-
72, wherein says Father Dablon, now the
superior-general at Quebec: ^^This Nation
having been trained in Christianity years
ago, before the Hurons' destruction, those
who have continued in the Faith now display
112

A Strenuous Life

great fervor. They fill the Chapel daily,
visit it often during the day, and sing God's
praises there with a devotion that has com-
municated itself in no small measure to the
French who have witnessed it. There the
grown people have been baptized, and the old
people set the children an example in their
assiduous attendance at prayers. In a word,
they observe all the exercises of piety that
can be expected from a Christian body or-
ganized more than 20 years ago — although
it has been, most of that time, without
Church, without Pastor, and without other
Teacher than the Holy Ghost."

But a scholar of Marquette's broad vision
was not content with simply telling of his
missionary experiences. He had been
schooled in such science as was current in
his day, and for the benefit of his fellows
at home forwarded accounts of the natural
phenomena which interested him in this far-
away outpost of French influence. In the
Relation of 1670-71, he of course furnishes
the material from which Dablon writes the
account of the mission; and very likely even
the language of the account may be that of
» 113

Father Marquette

Marquette himself , for the Relations were
largely made up by the superior-general of
extracts from the letters of the missionaries,
sometimes with credit, but more often with-
out. The winds and the tides greatly inter-
est him, partly because they are an inconve-
nience to his French assistants, who are not
such good fishermen as the Indians accus-
tomed to these waters: "First, the winds.
This spot is midway between three great
Lakes which surround it and seem to be in-
cessantly playing ball with one another — the
winds from the Lake of the Ilinois no sooner
subsiding than the Lake of the Hurons sends
back those which it has received, whereupon
Lake Superior adds others of its own. Thus
they continue in endless succession; and, as
these Lakes are large, it is inevitable that
the winds arising from them should be vio-
lent, especially throughout the Autumn."

The tides of the Great Lakes, or what
appear to be tides, are particularly notice-
able here at Mackinac, and the report dis-
cusses them at some length. The writer of
the account, whether it be Marquette or Da-
blon, deems it possible that they may be
114

A Strenuous Life

" caused by the winds, which, blowing from
one direction or another, drive the water be-
fore them, and make it run in a sort of flow
and ebb." This also is the modem view of
the phenomenon. He thinks it possible that
Lake Superior has a subterranean outlet
hereabout, for " we have discovered a great
discharge of water gushing up from the bot-
tom of the Lake, and causing constant whirl-
pools in the strait between the Lake of the
Hurons and that of the Ilinois." He is the
more inclined to this theory because of his
opinion that St. Marys River is too small
to accommodate the natural overflow from
Lake Superior. The tides and the gushing
currents, he says, break the nets of the fish-
ermen, or drive them upon the jagged rocks
at the bottom of the lake.

Li the Relation of 1672-73 there is given
in full an interesting letter written from
Mackinac to Father Dablon, by Father Mar-
quette, evidently being sent to Quebec by a
party of Indians who were going in their
canoes to the capital of New France upon a
trading trip. In this letter, probably writ-
ten in the autumn of 1672, nothing is said
115

Father Marquette

of any change of location in the mission.
The name Michillimackinac was given by the
French to all the neighboring region, island
or mainland, so that it is impossible to say
exactly where the missionary was stationed
when he wrote his letter. But, as has been
stated in the previous chapter, it is probable
that by this time he had removed to Point
St. Ignace, four miles northwest of the is-
land. There, certainly, the chapel was situ-
ated five years later, when the bones of our
hero arrived for burial.

Marquette begins by saying that the Hu-
rons, fearing an attack from Iroquois, had
built a stockade in the summer just past, to
surround their cabins. This was in the im-
mediate neighborhood of the mission chapel,
which was very likely but a bark hut, much
resembling the long houses of the Hurons —
the front end fitted up as a church, with a
rude altar, silver vessels upon it, and pic-
tures hung about, illustrating the lives of
Christ and the saints ; while the rear served
the Frenchmen as a dwelling. Of his dusky
parishioners the father writes:

^^They have been more assiduous at
116

A Strenuous Life

prayer, have listened more willingly to The
instructions that I gave Them, and have ac-
ceded to my requests for preventing grave
misconduct and Their abominable Customs.
One must have patience with savage Minds
who have no other Knowledge than of the
Devil, whose slaves they and all Their fore-
fathers have been; and they frequently re-
lapse into those sins in Which they have been
reared. God alone can give firmness to
Their fickle minds, and place and maintain
Them in grace, and touch Their Hearts while
we stammer into Their ears.

" This year the Tionnontateronnons
[Hurons] were here to the number of three
hundred and eighty souls, and they were
joined by over sixty souls of the Outaoua-
sinagaux [Ottawas]. Some of the latter
came from The mission of saint frangois
Xavier [De Pere], where Reverend Father
Andr6 spent last winter with them ; and they
appeared to me to be very different from
what they were when I saw them at The
point of saint Esprit. The Zeal and patience
of that Father have won over to The faith
hearts which seemed to us to be very averse
117

Father Marquette

to it. They desire to be Christians, they
bring Their children to the Chapel to be bap-
tizedy and they are very assiduous in attend-
ing prayers.

^^ Last Summer, when I was obliged to go
to sainte Marie du sault with Reverend
Father Alloues, The hurons came to The
Chapel during my absence, as assiduously as
if I had been there, and The girls Sang the
hynms that they knew. They counted The
days that passed after my departure, and
continually asked when I was to return. I
was absent only fourteen days; and, on my
arrival, all proceeded to the Chapel, to which ,
many came expressly from their Fields, al-
though these were very far away.

"I cheerfully attended Their feasts of
Squashes, at which I instructed them and
called upon Them to thank Gk>d, who gave
them food in abundance while other tribes,
who had not yet embraced Christianity, had
great difficulty in preserving themselves
from hunger. I cast ridicule on Their
dreams, and encouraged those who had been
baptized to acknowledge him whose Adopted
children they were. Those who gave feasts,
118

A Strenuous Life

although still Idolaters, spoke most honor-
ably of Christianity, and they were not
ashamed to make The sign of The Cross be-
fore every one. Some young men, against
whom jests had been directed to prevent
Them from doing So, made It in The largest
meetings, even when I was not present.

"Some Christian Hurons who came up
from Quebecq and Montreal declared, at the
outset, that they would not attend meetings
wherein God was offended ; that if they were
invited to feasts, they would follow The Cus-
tom of the Christians. They placed them-
selves on my side when I was able to be
present, and maintained Their Freedom
when I was absent."

He then proceeds to tell of some of his
apparent conversions. But he fully recog-
nizes, from sad experience with them, that in
many cases this supposed change of heart
is but temporary; for he says : " I trust that
what they do through respect and through
Fear will one day be done through love, and
with the desire of being saved."

He attends some of their dances, but
disapproves of most of them as being super-
119

Father Marquette

stitiousy and succeeds for a time in stopping
them. "I did not fail during The autumn
to go and visit them in Their Fields, where I
instructed Them and made Them pray to
Gody and told Them what they had to do.
I also made frequent and regular visits to
them — especially those who, owing to their
advanced age, could not come to the Chapel
• • . Since there was as yet no Bell for
the Chapel, I went to notify Them " of the
services of the church. During the year he
baptized two adults and twenty-eight chil-
dren. His letter thus concludes:

** God has aided in a special manner The
Hurons who went to Hunt; for he Led Them
to places where they killed a great number
of Bears, Stags, Beavers, and Wildcats.
Several bands failed not to observe the di-
rections that I had given Them respecting
prayers. Dreams, to which they formerly
had recourse, were looked upon as Illusions ;
and, if they happened to dream of bears,
they did not Kill any on account of that ; on
the contrary, after they had had recourse to
prayer, God gave them what they desired.
This, my Reverend Father, is all that I can
120

A Strenuous Life

write to Your Reverence respecting this mis-
sion, where men's minds are more gentle,
more tractable, and better disposed to re-
ceive The instructions that are given them
than in any other Place. Meanwhile, I am
preparing to Leave It in The hands of an-
other missionary, to go by Your Reverence's
order and Seek toward The south sea new
nations that are unknown to us, to teach
Them to know our great God, of whom they
have hitherto been Ignorant/'

121

CHAPTER XII

JOLIET ABBIVBS AT ICAOKINAG

When Jacques Marquette was an eight-
year-old lad, a scion of the proudest family
in Laon, there was bom (1645) in the little
riverside hamlet at the foot of the rock of
Quebec a boy whose name will forever be
mentioned with his own whenever men speak
of the French discovery of the Mississippi
Biver. Louis Joliet was the son of a poor
wagon-maker in the employ of the great fur-
trading company which then controlled New
France; he died when Louis was six years
of age.

As Louis grew to manhood he developed
considerable capacity in several directions.
He appears to have been at first selected for
the priesthood, and spent several years as a
student in the Jesuit house in Quebec; he
even took some of the preliminary vows of
that order. In 1666 and 1667, just after he
had reached his majority, we find him men-
12S

Joliet Arrives at Mackinac

tioned in the records as ^^ clerk of the
church *' in the seminary of Quehec.

Quebec was then but a small village upon
the outskirts of civilization, and people of
every sort were thrown together with more
or less intimacy. The little band of Jesuits,
both priests and scholars, of course lived be-
neath the same roof, and, with aims in com-
mon, formed lifelong attachments. Mar-
quette had arrived from France in 1666.
Although he was eight years older than
Joliet, they were both young and impression-
able, and appear to have become fast friends.
But Joliet abandoned his priestly studies at
about the same time that Marquette left for
Three Rivers to study under Driiillettes.
In October, 1667, Joliet went to France,
spending a happy year in the land of his
parents.

Upon his return to Canada he adopted the
calling of an explorer, as did many another
ambitious young man of his time, and en-
tered upon the training then essential to suc-
cess in that arduous field. Like the Indian,
the professional explorer must understand
the craft of the wilderness. He must know
123

Father Marquette

how properly to interpret the moods of na-
ture ; to silently wend his way in the darkest
and thickest forest, and to live alone, far
from his base of supplies. It was essential
for him to acquire the art of fashioning
shelter huts, weapons, utensils, sleds, and
canoes ; and he must be a good hunter, fisher,
and cook. He must patiently endure the ex-
perience of life in the Indian camps; must
readily acquire Indian dialects ; must not be
failing in tact; must, in times of danger, be
alert, resourceful, and brave. Such rearing
had Jean Nicolet, who in 1634, first of all
known Frenchmen, journeyed into the region
of the upper lakes. Nicolas Perrot, Duluth,
La Salle, Tonty, and the Jesuit missionaries,
all studied in this rough school, and were
successful only as they proved good pupils.
Widely divergent as were now the call-
ings of the two young students, it is curious
to see how close from the first lay their paths
of action. In the year 1669, when Marquette
was sent to take charge of the mission at
Chequamegon Bay, Joliet, in the capacity of
interpreter and Indian expert, accompanied
a party instructed by the governor of New
124

Joliet Arrives at Mackinac

France to search for copper mines in the
Lake Superior region. Two years later,
soon after Marquette arrived at Mackinac
Island, we find Joliet with the party of St.
Lusson, the political agent who, as related
in a preceding chapter, formally took pos-
session of the Northwest country in the name
of the great king of France.

Joliet appears to have spent much of his
time for several years in the region of the
upper Great Lakes, hunting for copper mines
and learning the numerous dialects of the
Algonkins and their neighbors. In both the
Jesuit and official reports of the period he
is always spoken of as a man of discretion,
bravery, and unusual ability, who might be
trusted to do difficult work.

It must not be supposed that Father Mar-
quette was alone in his yearning to explore
the great River of the West, and thus to solve
the geographical problem of the day — ^wheth-
er it flowed into the Gulf of California or the
Gulf of Mexico, or southeastward through
Virginia. Long before Marquette was bora,
adventurous Frenchmen had been eager to
find the mysterious river concerning which
125

Father Marquette

savages brought vagne but glowing reports
to the Jesuit missions of Huronia and to
the fur markets of Quebec and Tadoussac
Champlain had dreamed of reaching its
banks; but the affairs of the colony caused
him to turn homeward after only reaching
the shores of Lake Huron— in itself a notable
achievement. We have seen that those gay
rovers, Badisson and Groseilliers, who went
forth " to discover the great lakes that they
heard the wild men speak of/' may have also
paddled their canoe upon the Father of
Waters in the summer of 1655. There are
those who think that Robert Cavelier, known
to history as La Salle, prince of Western
explorers, traded for furs upon the Missis-
sippi as early as 1670; but no good reason
for this belief has been advanced. In the
early summer of that same year Fathers
Dablon and Allouez were at the Mascouten
village, not far from the Wisconsin River,
which three years later Joliet and Marquette
were to descend to the Mississippi. "It
was,'* writes Allouez in the Relation for
1669-70, "a beautiful river running south-
west without any rapid. It leads to the great
126

Joliet Arrives at Mackinac

river called Messi-sipi, which is only six
days' sail from here." Dablon, who soon
after returned to Quebec as the superior-
general of his order in New France, had,
throughout his many journeys in Wisconsin
and along the shores of Lake Superior, per-
sistently sought information regarding the
mysterious river. In the Belation of 1670-
71 he gives a map of Lake Superior and
says:

^^ It is a Southward course that is taken
by the great river called by the natives Mis-
sisipi, which must empty somewhere in the
region of the Florida sea, more than four
hundred leagues hence. . . . Some Sav-
ages have assured us that this is so noble
a river that, at more than three hundred
leagues' distance from its mouth, it is larger
than the one flowing before Quebec; for they
declare that it is more than a league wide.
. . . Some warriors of this country, who
tell us that they have made their way thither,
declare that they saw there men resembling
the French, who were splitting trees with
long knives ; and that some of them had their
houses on the water — for thus they expressed
127

Father Marquette

themselves in speaking of sawed boards and
of Ships. They state further that all along
that great river are various Tribes of differ-
ent Nations, of dissimilar languages and cus-
tomSy and all at war with one another."

Joliet himself, during his years in the
Lake Superior country, hungrily sought
every morsel of information concerning the
south-flowing waterway about which he and
Marquette must often have speculated when
they dwelt together in the Jesuit house in
Quebec. When Joliet was returning with a
French companion to the lower St. Lawrence,
in the early autumn of 1669, he accidentally
met near the head of Lake Ontario a party
of Frenchmen headed by La Salle, who were
seeking the Mississippi. The Iroquois of
New York State had told La Salle of this
waterway, and, disliking the Jesuits, he had
associated with him two Sulpitian mission-
aries from Montreal, DoUier de Casson and
Ben6 de Galin^, who were desirous of seek-
ing new tribes of Indians among whom to
labor.

La Salle wished to proceed by way of the
Ohio Biver, but Joliet, drawing a map of
128

Joliet Arrives at Mackinac

such of the upper country as he knew, sought
to convince his countrymen that it would be
best to proceed by way of the Great Lakes,
the new route which he had followed in his
journey home.* The missionaries took
kindly to his suggestions, but La Salle was
not to be moved. Unwilling to offend his
Sulpitian friends, he pretended that illness
would compel him to return to Montreal.
Parting company, he proceeded with his
servants to the Ohio, which he explored
as far down as the falls, where Louisville is
now situated. The missionaries, eager to
reach the Pottawattomies of Wisconsin, who,
Joliet told them, were in sore need of spir-
itual instruction, pushed on to Lake Erie,
upon whose stormy shores they passed a
dreary winter. In the spring they completed
the tour of Lake Erie, and proceeded in their
frail birch canoes up tiie length of Lake Hu-

* It has already been explained <pp. 49, 50) that until 1669
the French were obliged to follow the Ottawa route exclu-
MTelj, because the Iroquois shut them out of Lake Erie.
Thereafteiv until the aloae of the centurj, both routes were
followed between the St. Lawrence and the upper lakes.
After the establishment of a fort at Detroit (1701), the lake
route was sufficiently safe to cause its general adoption.
10 129

Father Marquette

ron, a long and dangerous journey, until on
the twenty-fifth of May, 1670, they landed
at Sault de Ste. Marie.

Here, at the Jesuit mission, enclosed, with
other rude houses, in a square fort of cedar
palisades, surrounded by cultivated fields,
were found Dablon and Marquette; the lat-
ter was here upon a visit from La Pointe.
Hospitality was the rule of the wilderness,
and Galin^, in his journal, gives us an ap-
preciative account of their reception. But
the Jesuits were in control of the Ottawa
missionary field, and the fathers at the Sault
did not conceal their dislike of rivalry on the
part of the Sulpitians. After a visit of but
three days, the Montreal visitors, escorted
by a French guide, turned southward
through St. Marys Eiver, entered Georgian
Bay, and returned home by the now familiar
route of the Ottawa Eiver.

The descent of Joliet to Quebec, with his
maps and his reports of the upper country,
renewed popular and official interest in the
discovery of the Mississippi. This interest
was further strengthened by the return, the
following year, of Oalin^e and Casson to
180

Joliet Arrives at Mackinac

Montreal. The attempt of the Sulpitians to
enter npon the mission gronnd of the Jesuits
no donbt served to quicken the zeal of the
black robes, who at this time were in high
favor with the authorities of New France.

A considerable body of distorted in-
formation had already been gathered con-
cerning the river; but no one had thus far
published any account of it which was the
result of personal observation — Badisson's
journal, written in English, was not discov-
ered until long after, and remained unpub-
lished until 1886. It must be remembered
that birch-bark canoes were as yet the only
means of transportation; that it cost con-
siderable money to fit out exploring expedi-
tions; perils from storms, accidents, famine,
and the hostility of fanatical savages, beset
the way. The traveler of our generation
who seeks to penetrate the forbidden lands
of central Africa is in no greater danger
than the explorer who, in the seventeenth
century, ventured far into the interior of
the then dark continent of North America.

Jean Talon had for several years served
at Quebec as the king's intendant, the officer
131

Father Marquette

in charge of the financial, police, and judicial
affairs of the province— next to the governor
the most important person in Canada. A
man of lofty ambitions, Talon had done much
to develop the commerce and industries of
New France ; he had sent Father Albanel to
Hudson Bay to oppose English fur trade
encroachments there, and St. Lusson to
Sault de Ste. Marie to extend the king's do-
main into the Northwest. He now sought
to hasten the discovery of the Mississippi,
and to that end brought influence to bear
upon the home government in France. He
was successful in obtaining from the king's
minister a note dated June 4, 1672, giving
him the necessary authority: "Since for the
increase of the colony," wrote the Paris of-
ficial, " there is nothing more important for
the colony than the discovery of a passage
to the south sea, his majesty wishes you to
give it your attention."

Armed with this explicit direction. Talon
at once sought the man for tibie expedition.
His choice naturally fell upon Joliet. Ta-
lon's health failing him, he returned to
France that autumn, but recommended Joliet
183

Joliet Arrives at Mackinac

to CouBt Frontenacy the newly-arrived gov-
ernor. In November, after Joliet had left
for the then far west, Frontenac in his turn
wrote to Colbert, prime minister of France,
at Paris: ^^I have deemed it expedient for
the service to send the Sieur Joliet to dis-
cover the sonth sea by the Maskontens conn-
try, and the great river Mississippi, which is
believed to empty into the California sea.
He is a man of experience in this kind of dis-
covery, and has already been near the great
river, of which he promises to see the month."
In seeking knowledge of the vast interior
of the American continent, and making trea-
ties with the Indians, the French were actu-
ated by several motives. The national thirst
for territory, that which to-day we call " im-
perialism," was one ; then there was the hope
to hem in the English colonists to the Atlan-
tic slope by arraying against them the west-
em barrier of French forts and French-
loving Indians; a desire to extend the fur
trade and to discover mines of gold, silver,
copper, and lead, was a prominent factor;
and not least in their thoughts was a wish to
thread the Christian religion among heathen
133

Father Marquette

nations. That is why every important ex-
ploring party must needs be accompanied by
a priest.

We have seen that La Salle, who hated
the Jesuits, took Sulpitians in his party ; but
the government of New France, being
friendly to the Jesuits, whose missions were
scattered all the way from Labrador to Wis-
consin, naturally turned to Father Dablon,
as superior-general of the order — ^himself
one of the best authorities upon the Western
country — to select one of his missionaries as
a companion for Joliet. It was well known
that Marquette had, at La Pointe, studied the
Illinois dialects, and his letters in the annual
Relations not only gave information which
he had gathered regarding the Mississippi,
but expressed his longings to carry the gos-
pel to tribes upon the great river of the
south. He had, indeed, while still at La
Pointe, been promised the privilege of open-
ing a mission among the Illinois Indians ; and
now, at the straits of Mackinac, the gateway
thither, was but biding his time. The hour
had at last come. To Jolief s hands were
entrusted Dablon's instructions to Marquette
134

Joliet Arrives at Mackinac

to accompany the expedition which Count
Frontenac was despatching to the unknown
regions of the southwest; and the historian
of the Catholic Church in America, John Gil-
mary Shea, believes that Bishop Laval, " to
accredit Marquette to the Spanish authori-
ties whom he might encounter, made him
vicar-general for the lands into which they
were to penetrate."

Slowly did the young Sieur Joliet, appar-
ently alone, ascend in his birch canoe the
turbulent Ottawa and its tributary, the Hat-
tawan; with weary limbs follow the well-
trodden portage-path to Lake Nipissing;
and, finally emerging from its tangle of for-
ested islands, now gay with autumnal foliage,
rapidly descend French River into the broad,
isle-strewn expanse of Georgian Bay of Lake
Huron. Weeks must have elapsed before at
last, in his tiny craft, he could thread the
length of that gloomy archipelago. Genial
autumn was succeeded by the chilling air of
November, for winter early seeks the region
of the upper lakes; the burning glow of
maples and sumac was followed by the
shriveled brown of frost-nipped oak leaves;
185

Father Marquette

each morning the ttaveler, in awakening
beneath his shelter of boughs npon island
or mainland beaeh, fonnd the damp mosses
crisp nnder foot, and the neighboring rivnlet
skimmed with ice; fitful winds, laden with
snow-flakes^ scurried the leaves into ever-
shifting windrows and whistled mournfully
in the tree-tops.

Travelers by canoe must needs be pa-
tient when upon great waters. But it was
important that Joliet should reach Mackinac
before ice blocked his passage thither, so that
the expedition might start for the West as
soon as the straits were open in the coming
spring, and thus have a full season for its
voyage. To secure this result he must fre-
quently have taken risks in his journey. As it
was, he came dangerously near not reaching
his goal before winter barred him out; for
it was the eighth of December, when no doubt
ice-floes were forming in the straits, before the
intrepid explorer beached his craft upon the
strand of Point St. Ignace, and, embracing
his priestly friend, placed within his eager
hands the fateful message which was to link
their names upon a page of history.
136

CHAPTEE XTTT

THB BXPBDITJON STARTS

Fatheb Marquette tells us, in the jour-
nal of his first voyage, that, during the en-
tire period of his mission in the ^'country
of the Ontaonacs/' he always invoked the
Blessed Virgin ^^to obtain from God the
grace of being able to visit the Nations who
dwell along the Missisipi Eiver/' Curiously
enough, the feast of the immaculate concep-
tion of the Virgin "was precisely the Day
[December 8] on which Monsieur JoUyet ar-
rived with orders from Monsieur the Count
de frontenac, Our Governor, and Monsieur
Talon, Our Intendant, to accomplish This
discovery with me. I was all the more de-
lighted at This good news, since I saw that
my plans were about to be accomplished; and
since I found myself in the blessed necessity
of exposing my life for the salvation of all
these peoples, and especially of the Ilinois,
who had very urgently entreated me, when I
137

Father Marquette

was at the point of st. Esprit [La Pointe],
to carry the word of God to Their country."
The hardships and insults which were
the daily lot of a Jesuit missionary to the
Indians would certainly have repelled any
man not an optimist or a zealot. Marquette
was of a gentle, joyous disposition, ever look-
ing upon the bright side of life, and burned
with that zeal which has through all time
inspired the martyrs of religious faith; to
him no experiences could be distasteful that
were endured for the glory of the church.
Joliet appears likewise to have been imbued
with youthful enthusiasm, and was strongly
in sympathy with the aspirations of his mis-
sionary comrade ; but, as a man of the world,
he carefully calculated the means employed,
and whereas Marquette sought merely to
widen the realms of Christianity, he in his
turn was mindful of fame and of official pre-
ferment in case the exploration were success-
ful. Together they completely represented
the buoyant, vigorous spirit of their time —
Marquette, the idealist, but thirty-six years
of age ; and Joliet, the man of affairs, aged
twenty-eight.

138

The Expedition Starts

As has been pointed out in the previoas
chapter, possibly other Frenchmen had al-
ready found the Mississippi — ^Badisson and
Groseilliers, or La Salle; and of course we
should not forget the discovery of the lower
reaches of the river over a century previous
(April, 1541) by the Spaniard De Soto. But
no more came from De Soto's visit than had
ensued as the result of Leif Erikson's early
voyage from Iceland to the coast of North
America — neither made any impression on
the world at the time, both were barren of
result. Columbus, knowing little if anything
of the Icelander's visit nearly five centuries
before his own, deliberately, with nice cal-
culation, led the way afresh to the new
world; and, through the door which he op-
ened, civilization entered. In like manner,
Joliet and Marquette, regardless of De Soto
or of any other possible predecessor, sought
the Mississippi in the true spirit of scientific
exploration; they were about to open the
door to the greatest of the continental water-
ways, a door which was never again to be
closed. To them, therefore, as to Columbus,
we accord the chief honor of a well-planned
139

Father Marquette

discovery, which was of world-wide signifi-
cance.

The long northern winter was spent by
the two friends in most careful preparation.
Making notes of all that they had themselves
learned concerning the Mississippi, and
drafting maps of the region — an art in which
both were experts — ^they searched far and
wide for further information. French or
half-breed fur-traders who had wandered
into the western country, other Jesuits who
had gathered scraps of fact or fancy con-
cerning it, and Indians of many tribes who
tarried at St Ignace while on the hunting-
path, all were drawn upon to contribute their
mite to the general stock of knowledge. The
rude mission-house on the north shore of the
straits was for several months the center of
a wide-spread popular interest, for news of
the proposed journey had penetrated to the
winter camps of wandering savages and fur-
traders far northward on the shores of Lake
Superior, westward to the Jesuit mission on
Fox River, and eastward to the pine-clothed
shores of the Manitoulins.

Marquette, upon whose journal we must
140

The Expedition Starts

hereafter largely draw for our kaowledge of
the man as well as of the voyage, freely tells
us of these careful preparations: ^^ Because
We were going to seek Unknown countries.
We took every precaution in our power, so
that, if our Undertaking were hazardous, it
should not be foolhardy. To that end, we
obtained all the Information that we could
from the savages who had frequented these
regions; and we even traced out from their
reports a Map of the whole of that New coun-
try; on it we indicated the rivers which we
were to navigate, the names of the peoples and
of the places through which we were to pass,
the Course of the great Biver, and the direc-
tion we were to follow when we reached it.'*
Ice in the straits begins to move about
the first of May. Not until the waters are
cleared is Mackinac, after a prolonged sleep,
again in communication with the world.
With the earliest canoes from the lower coun-
try came Father Philippe Pierson, a Vigor-
ous young Jesuit thirty years old. He had
been appointed to succeed Marquette at St
Ignace, a post which he occupied throughout
the succeeding ten years.
141

Father Marquette

Pierson having been properly instructed
in the duties of the mission, active prepara-
tions for the voyage now conunenced. Men
trained to simplicity, as were our two explor-
ers, required but a modest outfit ^'We
were,'* writes Marquette, " not long in pre-
paring all our Equipment, although we were
about to Begin a voyage the duration of
which we could not foresee. Indian Com,
with some smoked meat, constituted all our
provisions; with these we Embarked — Mon-
sieur Jollyet and myself, with 5 men — ^in 2
Bark Canoes, fully resolved to do and suffer
everything for so glorious an Undertaking/*

The seventeenth of May, 1673, is a date
worthy of remembrance in American history.
That day Joliet and Marquette, with their
five French voyageurs (oarsmen), set forth
from Point St. Ignace upon the epoch-mak-
ing expedition which was to extend far the
bounds of New France and their own fame.

Indians were not fond of exploration for
its own sake, although both war and the hunt-
ing-path ofttimes led them far afield. To
their disordered imaginations, far-distant
waterways were the homes of strange mon-
142

The Expedition Starts

sters who lay in wait to destroy luckless trav-
elers; the forest abounded in fierce animals
who closely guarded the shores; evil spirits
of air and water plotted disaster in many
forms to those who invaded their domain;
and, most certain of all, hostile tribesmen
were to be encountered at every turn.

It was theref ore, in great wonderment at
the hardihood of this handful of Frenchmen,
that Hurons and Ottawas and visiting mem-
bers of other tribes — clad in skins and gay
with feathers and beads and dyed porcupine-
quills — crowded upon the beach, that fateful
May morning, to see our heroes depart In
the little bark chapel had been repeated the
service of the church, seeking the blessing
of the Virgin upon the voyage of discovery
undertaken in her name. The moccasined
voyageurs, with their gray homespun coats,
leggings, and pudding-bag caps, brightened
by sashes of lively colors, had said their last
farewells to the donnas and the serving-men
left behind. Marquette, beaming with joy-
ful anticipation, had embraced his brother
black robe, and blessed all his people, red
and white. And the Sieur Joliet, in blanket-
143

Father Marquette

coat and jaunty cap of beaver, had, as be-
came a man of quality, shaken hands with
everybody and received their Qod-speeds for
the venturesome expedition.

Stepping at last into their canoes, each
of the leaders probably serving as master
of a craft, they bent to the paddles, voyageur
and master alike, only pausing, as they
rounded the western shoulder of the point,
to wave a last salute to the shouting throng
of savages and Europeans upon the white
beach of St. Ignace.

144

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CHAPTER XIV

ARBIVAL AT DE PEBB

OuB young explorers set forth upon their
arduous quest with hearts as light as if upon
a holiday excursion. Writes Marquette :
" The Joy that we felt at heing selected for
This Expedition animated our Courage, and
rendered the lahor of paddling from morn-
ing to night agreeable to us."

Soon rounding Point la Barbe, with its
frowning minarets of stone, they breasted
the pent-up current which rushes through
the narrowest portion of the straits; and
then, losing sight of the graceful curves of
Mackinac Island, bore off northwestward,
along the indented coast of Lake Michigan.

The savages of the north shore of this
inland sea were few in number and compara-
tively mild of disposition ; so that the camps
of the adventurers, upon the edges of the
deep forest, were unvisited. Finally, after
several days, the two canoes swept around
11 146

Father Marquette

far-stretching Point Detour and entered
Oreen Bay— called by the French "Bay of
the Puants."

The history of the bestowal of this un-
savory name is worth relating here, because
it gave rise to some curious errors. Quite
early in the career of New France, Algonkin
Indians from the upper lakes brought to
Quebec reports that, upon the shores of this
particular bay, there dwelt a strange tribe
called by their neighbors "Ouinipegou"
(pronounced Winnipegoo), a word which the
French translated into "Puants," or "ill-
smelling people." As "Ouinipegou" was
the same term as that given by these sav-
ages to those who lived by the sea — or " fetid
water," as it was sometimes called — ^the
French at first styled the then unknown tribe
"nation of the sea." This arose from the
opinion then common among Europeans — ^al-
ready alluded to in these pages — ^that the
American continent was narrow^ and that
the China Sea was not far from the upper
lakes. It was, therefore, easy to suppose
that these Puants might readily be Chinese,
particularly as the Algonkins reported that
146

Arrival at Dc Perc

they spoke a strange language; also wore
their hair in long locks, and had other curi-
ous customs.

It will be remembered that when Jean
Nicolet came to Green Bay, three years be-
fore Marquette was born, he had, misled by
this inference, expected to meet Chinese
here. But instead, he found, to his great
disappointment, that the " nation of the sea "
were merely an outcast branch of the Sioux.
After a time, when no longer associating
them with the sea, the French came only to
call them Puants; and that name clung to
this people for nearly a century and a half.
Several of the Jesuit missionaries called at-
tention, in their Belations and letters, to this
wrong translation of " Ouinipegou." Da-
blon supposed it merely had reference to the
fact that "the odor of marshes surround-
ing the Bay somewhat resembles that of the
sea." Father Beschefer thought that it
meant "waters smelling of rushes." While
Marquette himself tells us that it probably
came from " the quantity of mire and Mud
which is seen there, whence noisome vapors
Constantly arise." When the English came
147

Father Marquette

into possession of the country, the French
name Puants was dropped, and the Indian
name, Ouinipegou, adopted — ^but with a
change in the pronunciation, for we now call
these people Winnebagoes. All of which
shows how interesting may be the history
of a mere word.

The first place where the explorers met
any of the natives was upon the river after-
ward called Menomonee, from the tribe of
AlgonkLns then inhabiting its valley. This
rugged stream, now one of the boundaries
between Wisconsin and upper Michigan, is
the principal northern affluent of Green Bay.
The French name for this tribe was " FoUes
Avoines" (wild oats, or wild rice); "Me-
nomonee" itself is but their own word for
the same thing. Marquette thus interest-
ingly describes this visit :

" The first Nation that we came to was
That of the foUe avoine. I entered Their
river, to go and visit these peoples to whom
we have preached The Gospel for several
years — ^in consequence of which, there are
several good christians among Them.

" The wild oat, whose name they bear be-
148

Arrival at Dc Pcrc

cause it is found in their country, is a sort
of grass, which grows naturally in the small
Rivers with muddy bottoms, and in Swampy
Places. It greatly resembles the wild oats
that Grow amid our wheat. The ears grow
upon hollow stems, jointed at Intervals;
they emerge from the Water about the month
of June, and continue growing until they rise
About two feet above it. The grain is not
larger that That of our oats, but it is twice
as long, and The meal therefrom is much
more abundant. The Savages Gather and
prepare it for food as Follows. In The
month of September, which is the suitable
time for The harvest, they go in Canoes
through These fields of wild oats ; they shake
its Ears into the Canoe, on both sides, as
they pass through. The grain falls out eas-
ily, if it be ripe, and they obtain their sup-
ply In a short time. But, in order to clean
it from the straw, and to remove it from a
husk in which it is Enclosed, they dry it in
smoke, upon a wooden grating, under which
they maintain a slow fire for some Days.
When The oats are thoroughly dry, they put
them in a Skin made into a bag, thrust It
149

Father Marquette

into a hole dug in the ground for This pur-
pose, and tread it with their feet — so long
and so vigorously that The grain separates
from the straw, and is very easily winnowed.
After this, they pound it to reduce it to flour
— or even, without pounding it, they Boil it
in water, and season it with fat. Cooked in
This fashion, The wild oats have almost as
delicate a taste as rice has when no better
seasoning is added.

" I told these people of the f oUe avoine
of My design to go and discover Those Re-
mote nations, in order to Teach them the
Mysteries of Our Holy Religion. They were
Greatly surprised to hear it, and did their
best to dissuade me. They represented to
me that I would meet Nations who never
show mercy to Strangers, but Break Their
heads without any cause; and that war was
kindled Between Various peoples who dwelt
upon our Route, which Exposed us to the
further manifest danger of being killed by
the bands of Warriors who are ever in the
Field. They also said that the great River
was very dangerous, when one does not know
the difScult Places ; that it was full of horri-
160

Arrival at De Pcrc

ble monsters^ which devoured men and Ca-
noes Together ; that there was even a demon,
who was heard from a great distance, who
barred the way, and swallowed np all who
ventured to approach him; Finally that the
Heat was so excessive In those countries
that it would Inevitably Cause Our death.

'' I thanked them for the good advice that
they gave me, but told them that I could
not follow it, because the salvation of souls
was at stake, for which I would be delighted
to give my life ; that I scoffed at the alleged
demons; that we would easily defend our-
selves against those marine monsters; and,
moreover, that We would be on our guard
to avoid the other dangers with which they
threatened us. After making them pray to
God, and giving them some Instruction, I
separated from them.'*

Green Bay is shaped like a monster letter
V. It opens to the northeast, and the Fox
Biver enters it from the south, at the vertex
of the angles. The western shores are now,
as in the days of Joliet and Marquette, ir-
regular in outline and densely wooded with
pine and tamarack, presenting a somber and
151

Father Marquette

depressing appearance. The eastern coast
is generally high, with many bold headlands
and abrupt slopes, well covered with both
hard and soft woods.

Bed Banks, some seven miles below the
month of the Fox, is so called from the long
cliff of red clay and sand, which rises steeply
from the narrow beach to a height of about
seventy-five feet Up to about a half cen-
tury ago, the summit of this cliff was dotted
over with Indian mounds of many curious
shapes; but the boisterous action of wind
and waves has seriously eaten into the banks,
so that to-day the dwellers in the numerous
summer cottages which now occupy this pic-
turesque vantage-point find few memorials
of the mound-building Winnebagoes. These
Indians have a tradition that the Adam and
Eve of their tribe lived at Bed Banks ; also
that here the French first visited them.

The bay is a wild and stormy estuary,
much troubled by cross-winds and cross-
tides, and a cUmgerous passage for small
craft. The French, from many a sad expe-
rience, early called its entrance "Death's
Door," a name which still clings to it upon
152

Arrival at Dc Perc

the maps of Wisconsin. No doubt onr ex-
plorers were obliged to seize the opportunity
of favorable weather^ and cautiously crept
along the western shore. Marquette made
careful study of the Bay of the Puants^ con-
cerning which he had frequently read in the
Jesuit Belations, and probably had heard it
described by his friend AUouez, one of whose
missions he was now closely approaching.
He says of it in his journal : " The Bay is
about thirty leagues in depth and eight in
width at its Mouth ; it narrows gradually to
the bottom, where it is easy to observe a
tide which has its regular ebb and flow, al-
most Like That of the Sea. This is not the
place to inquire whether these are real tides ;
whether they are Due to the wind, or to some
other cause; whether there are winds, The
precursors of the Moon and attached to her
suite, which consequently agitate the lake
and give it an apparent ebb and flow when-
ever the Moon ascends above the horizon.
What I can Positively state is, that, when
the water is very Calm, it is easy to observe
it rising and falling according to the Course
of the moon; although I do not deny that
153

Father Marquette

This movement may be Caused by very Re-
mote Winds, which, pressing on the middle
of the lake, cause the edges to Rise and fall
in the manner which is visible to our eyes."

In due course the adventurers, paddling
lustily in the quiet waters along the shore,
came within sight of the enormous marshes
of wild rice which choke the mouth of Fox
River — vivid in their mass of changing
greenery, when swayed by the breeze and
glistening in the sun. ^' It is very beautiful
at its Mouth," writes our appreciative diar-
ist, " and flows gently; it is full Of bustards
[geese]. Ducks, Teal, and other birds, at-
tracted thither by the wild oats, of which
they are very fond."

Pushing on through this mass of waving
grain, and noisily welcomed by circling
clouds of aquatic fowl, the canoeists soon
found the channel broaden to about three
hundred yards, as solid banks were reached.
Before them was still an exhilarating pull
of about six miles up-stream — on the right
the wooded lowlands, long afterward the seat
of military power in the trans-Michigan
country, for French, English, and Americans
154

Arrival at De Pere

in turn; on the left the rolling site of the
modem city of Green Bay, then an untr9d-
den forest of intermingled oaks and pines.

Above this placid stretch, Fox River was
a toilsome waterway for frail craft of bark
—"very difficult of passage," writes Mar-
quette, " on account of both the Currents and
the sharp Bocks, which Cut the Canoes and
the feet of Those who are obliged to drag
them, especially when the Waters are low."
The first of these rapids were those at De
Pere. At this gateway to the Mississippi
our travelers found friends, and doubtless
tarried by the way.

155

CHAPTER XV

THE MISSION OF ST. FBAN9OI8 XAVIER

It has already been stated that when
Marqnette went to La Pointe, in the autumn
of 1669, it was as the successor to Father
Jean Claude Allouez. The latter, then fifty-
six years of age, and holding the title of
grand vicar for "all the countries situated
toward the North and West," had been
ordered by his superior, Dablon, to a new
field of work— to preach the faith to the Pot-
tawattomies, Menomonees, Winnebagoes,
and other tribes west of Lake Michigan. He
had passed the summer at Sault de Ste.
Marie, the headquarters of the Ottawa mis-
sion, where many of the tribesmen of the
region assembled annually for the fisheries
and the fur trade. During the first week of
November, he and two of the donn^ left the
Sault, in company with two canoe-loads of
Pottawatfomies, for the shores of Green
Bay. These Indians, he writes, "wished to
156

The Mission of St. Francois Xavier

conduct me to their Country; not that they
wished to receive instruction there, having
no disposition for the Faith, but that I might
curb some young Frenchmen, who, being
among them for the purpose of trading, were
threatening and maltreating them.''

As previously stated, it is sometimes quite
difficult, from a reading of the old Jesuit
journals, to establish locations, for the wri-
ters were not always particular in giving
geographical details. The western wilder-
ness was so far away from the Quebec or
Paris of that time, that the missionaries evi-
dently thought such minutiaB would be lost
upon those who read the accounts — ^just as
we should fail to appreciate elaborate de-
scriptions of camping-grounds in a book or
magazine article upon some traveler's expe-
riences in Central Africa or in the Austra-
lian desert. We prefer, in such matters, to
have him generalize; and this is what the
fathers often did in their Relations.

Accordingly, we are unable to state with
authority just where AUouez spent the
winter among the Pottawattomies, and es-
tablished the second Jesuit mission within the
157

Father Marquette

present State of Wisconsin. But by piec-
ing together his several rather vague refer-
ences to the locality, and estimating dis-
tances traveled by him to reach other places
which are recognizable on the maps of to-?
day, it is fair to assume that his landfall
was at the mouth of Oconto Biver, which
empties into Oreen Bay from the west, about
midway between the Menomonee and the Fox.
Here, apparently, dwelt the six French fur-
traders who had ill-treated the Indians, and
needed the repressing influence of the priest.
In one of the cabins of this temporary trad-
ing-post, the missionary and his companions
made their home throughout the winter of
1669-70, and from here visited neighboring
tribes along the shore of the bay.*

* In January, 1902, two hunters found upon the site of an
old Indian Tillage on the southeast shore of Green Bay, just
aboye Point Sable, a combined sun-dial and compass, of
bronze, and evidently of great age. Rudely engraved upon
it, are the latitude and longitude of seyeral of the principal
forte, missions, and settlements of New France, with the
spellings and other orthographic peculiarities of the seven-
teenth century. As this village was, from references in Al-
louez's journal, undoubtedly one which he visited during the
winter of 166^70 and later, it is possible that the instru-
ment was once owned either by Allouez or some of his Jesuit
assistante at the Green Bay mission.
158

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The Mission of St. Francois Xavier

About the middle of Aprils upon the open-
ing of navigation, Allouez and his donnas
proceeded up the bay and entered "the
River of the Puans, which we have named
for saint Francis." They, also, were greeted
by clouds of the wild fowl which then con-
gregated in great numbers within the rice-
marshes at the head of the bay, and pulled
on to the Sac village at the rapids of De
Pere, where the waters of the Fox, here
three hundred yards wide, descend eight feet
over jagged rocks.

From this place Allouez ascended the
stream to visit Indian villages on the Wolf
and upper Fox Rivers, preaching to Foxes,
Mascoutens, Miamis, and north-wandering
bands of the Illinois. Returning, he visited
the Menomonees and Winnebagoes — the lat-
ter camping on the east shore of Green Bay;
and in May, when the villages broke up for
the summer hunting and fishing expeditions,
retraced his watery path of a hundred
leagues to the Sault, promising to return in
the autumn to his scattered flocks in Wis-
consin.

In September, Father Dablon, superior
159

Father Marquette

of the Ottawa mission^ accompanied Allouez
upon his second canoe-trip to Wisconsin.
The two missionaries held councils with the
savages dwelling upon Green Bay and at De
Pere rapids, where some French fur-traders,
who had acted badly toward the tribesmen,
were now being subjected to "unbearable
insolence and indignity." Making a favor-
able impression upon these rude but well-dis-
posed people, they journeyed up Fox River
to the village of the Mascoutens, whom Nico-
let had visited in 1634, and whither we shall
soon accompany Marquette and Joliet. Re-
turning to Green Bay, the superior pushed
on to the Sault, while Allouez passed the
winter with the tribes upon the bay shore.

Says Dablon, concerning the natives
among whom his companion's lot was cast:
" Four different Tribes are situated near the
head of the bay, where they live partly on
what they gather from the fields, and partly
by fishing and hunting. Two others, a little
farther away, make their usual abode on the
rivers emptying into this same bay from the
North; and all acknowledge various sorts of
divinities, to whom they offer frequent sac-
10D

The Mission of St. Fran9ois Xavier

rifices. These People have Gods, as had the
Pagans of old, — ^having them in the Skies,
in the air, on the earth, in the woods, in the
water, and even in hell. . . . [Some of
them] who are regarded as intelligent among
their fellows hold the belief that besides the
Sun and thunder, — ^which they recognize as
the Gods of the Sky and of the air, — each
species of animals, fishes, and birds, has a
special genius who cares for it, watches over
its safety, and protects it from the harm
that might befall it/*

The following February (1671), AUouez,
hearing that the Fox Indians upon Wolf
River, southwest of Green Bay — possibly
near the site of the present city of New Lon-
don — were quarreling with some young
French traders who were stationed there,
"counted himself happy to expose his life
to evident danger in order to bear the Gos-
pel to those poor barbarians, as he has done
to all other peoples of those regions/* Set-
ting forth overland from the Bay of the
Puants, he traveled " in six days twenty-four
leagues over snow and ice, in the severest
part of the winter," some of his companions
la 161

Father Marquette

being *^ f rost-bitten, and well-nigh perishing
from cold." Beaching the village, " he went
from Cabin to Cabin, cheering some with the
hope of Paradise, and frightening others
with the fear of HelL" At first offering but
"jests, repnlses, and mockery," and threats
of death, in time they all listened to him
with "attention and affection." After they
had promised to bnild for him a chapel, to
be ready upon his retnm, and to be called
St. Mark, the father withdrew to his rude
home upon the bay. In the Relation for the
year, he speaks confidently of his two mis-
sions — St. PranQois Xavier and St. Mark; but
the former was still practically homeless, and
the latter a mere promise of the fickle Foxes.
The Jesuit missionaries were, however,
not easily discouraged. After another busy
summer at the Sault, Father Allouez pro-
ceeded again to Oreen Bay, this time in com-
pany with Father Louis Andr^, now forty-
eight years old, and one of the most interest-
ing and lovable of the early Jesuit fathers in
the Northwest. Some time during the win-
ter of 1671-72, probably in the early months,
the bark chapel of St. Francois Xavier was
162

The Mission of St. Francois Xavier

erected on the east side of De Pere rapids,*
in the midst of the Indian village which had
probahly been long established at this place.
Here remained Father Andr^, to look after
the nations gathered aronnd Oreen Bay,
while Allonez resumed his apostolic wander-
ings among the savage tribes of the Wiscon-
sin interior.

At the risk of digression, it is worth no-
ting here that Indian villages were generally
situated at natural vantage-points connected
with waterways, which were then the only
highways — at a river mouth, which is con-
venient for transportation, and often dose
to considerable fishing-grounds, as those
which we have already visited in our narra-
tive, at the mouths of the Menomonee and
Oconto Rivers ; beside a waterfall or rapids
(as at the Sault, and at De Pere, and at
other obstructions which we have as yet to
visit farther up the Fox River), because here
fish are plenty, and canoes must be carried

* Deriyed from the old French name, Bapidea d€$ F^ea
C' rapids of the fathers"), in aUusion to the mission there.
A monument, nnyeiled by the Wisconsin Historical Societj in
1B99, is near the site of Allouez's chapeL
163

Father Marquette

around by land, so that the villagers are
masters of the highway; upon a portage
path, because of ease in reaching and con-
trolling opposite-flowing water systems;
upon a bluff overlooking a lake, for facility
of defense and of observing the approach
of enemies^ as at Mackinac Island and La
Pointe; or upon a fertile river-bottom, be-
cause of good planting-ground, as at Prairie
du Chien. Frequently, several of these ad-
vantages were combined in one spot. In
due time, fur-traders came to such a village,
as they had to the Oconto Biver and to
Mackinac; then missionaries arrived, either
before or after the traders ; possibly a crude
log fort was now erected, to protect the ftir
trade, as happened at the Sault, at Macki-
nac, and Oreen Bay, and a score of other
places in the Northwest. Such was the man-
ner in which New France grew. In later
days, American towns followed upon these
old sites, and many of our most important
cities can thus be traced back to Indian vil-
lages established there long before white
men set foot upon the soil.

In the Relation for 1671-72, there are
IM

The Mission of St. Fran9ois Xavier

gathered from Father Andre's letters, and
from Dablon's own observations, most inter-
esting accounts of the new St. Francois
Xavier mission at De Pere, a part of which
are worth repeating here, for they give us
a very definite idea of the place where Mar-
quette and Joliet paused upon their great
journey, and of the people who received
them. Dablon writes:

"The bay commonly called des Puans
receives a river, in which wild fowl and fish
are caught both together. Of this practice
the Savages are the inventors; for, perceiv-
ing that Ducks, Teal, and other birds of that
kind dive into the water in quest of the
grains of wild rice to be found there toward
the Autumn season, they stretch nets for
them with such skill that, without counting
the fish, they sometimes catch in one night
as many as a hundred wild fowl. This fish-
ing is equally pleasant and profitable ; for it
is a pleasure to see in a net, when it is drawn
out of the water, a Duck caught side by side
with a pike, and Carp entangled in the same
meshes with Teal. The Savages subsist on
this manna nearly three months [in the year] .
166

Father Marquette

'^Nature and necessity, whidi have
taught them this mode of fishing, have
prompted them to invent still another on the
same river, two leagues from its mouth.

^^It is a device that is somewhat rude,
hut excellently adapted to their purpose, and
it enahles a child to fish with great success.
They construct it in such a manner as to
har the entire river from one bank to the
other, making a sort of palisade of stakes,
which they plant in the water in a straight
line, leaving onl^ space enough to allow the
water to run between certain hurdles, which
stop the large fish. Along this barrier they
arrange scaffolds, on which they place them-
selves in ambush and await their prey with
impatience. When the fish, following the
current, reach this barrier, the fisher plunges
in a pocket-shaped net, into which he easily
coaxes them.*

^* These two kinds of fishing draw to this

* This method was adopted bj Indians at several other
phuses mentioned in the Relations ; and to this day the French-
Canadians living at De Pere employ a somewhat similar de-
vice — at the foot of the present dam are built, at interrals in
the river, wooden platforms, to which are fastened large nets
which imprison the fish as they attempt to pass.
166

The Mission of St. Francois Xavier

spot many Savages from all directions. The
situation of the place contributes not a little
to this result; for, bordering that river, near
the spot of which we have just spoken, we
see a prairie of four or five arpents in width,
bounded on either side by woods of full-
grown trees. And besides the grapes, plums,
apples, and other fruits, which would be
fairly good if the Savages had patience to
let them ripen, there also grows on the prai-
ries a kind of lime resembling that of France,
but having no bitter taste — not even in its
rind. The plant bearing it slightly resem-
bles the fern.

" The Bear and the Wildcat— the latter
being as large as a medium-sized dog —
abound in the country; and as the woods
are free from underbrush, extensive prairies
are seen in the forests, and contribute to
the pleasure of living there. The above-
named animals, as well as the Stag, are
easily hunted — ^both in the woods, which are
not dense, and on the river, into which the
last-named animal often plunges in its
course, when it is pursued, and is taken with-
out difficulty.

167

Father Marquette

>^ To all the advantages of this place may
be added the fact of its being the great —
and the only — ^thoroughfare for all the sur-
rounding Nations, who maintain a constant
intercourse, either in visiting or trading.
Hence it was that we turned our eyes thither,
with a view to placing our Chapel there in
the midst of more than ten different Nations,
who can furnish us over fifteen thousand
souls to be instructed in the truths of Chris-
tianity."

In the report of their voyage of discov-
ery, Marquette makes no mention of stop-
ping at the mission at De Pere. Possibly
Father Andr^ was absent upon one of his
long tours, during which he experienced
many curious and sometimes thrilling ad-
ventures; but that the travelers were abun-
dantly entertained there, at least by the sav-
ages, many of whom had become much at-
tached to the missionaries, we can entertain
no doubt. Both Nicolet and AUouez had had
occasion to testify to the hospitality which
prevailed at this village, which sat by the
gateway to the great river.

Upon leaving St. Ignace, Marquette had
168

PEREOT'S OSTENSOEIUM, 1686.

(Silver soleil, given by Nicolas Perrot, French commandant of the West, to
St. Fran9oi8 Xavier mission at De Pere, Wisconsin, in 1686. Now in
museum of Wisconsin Historical Society, at Madison.)

The Mission of St. Fran9ois Xavicr

been transferred to the De Pere mission by
his superior in order to be convenient to the
Illinois tribes ; and we shall see that after his
return from the Mississippi he spent the
succeeding winter at these first rapids of
the Fox.

169

CHAPTER XVI

AT THB MASGOUTEN YILLAQB

From the De Pere rapids to Lake Winne-
bago— a distance as the stream winds of
some twenty-eight miles — ^Fox Biver is a
deep, rapid, and picturesque stream. Its
banks are, for the most part, soft rolling
terraces, which rise from twenty to fifty feet
above the flood; being varied, now and then,
by park-like glades, and bold, rocky bluffs.
Still retaining much of their original beauty,
these shores were, in their primitive con-
dition, densely wooded with oaks, maples,
pines, and cedars, from whose branches
hung rich festoons of the wild grape ; clumps
of wild crab-apples and plums flourished in
sheltered nooks by the side of the cataracts,
and ferns and mosses made of each damp
ravine a veritable paradise.

The course of the river is obstructed by
several rapids, most of them so formidable
as even in the descent to necessitate usually
170

At the Mascouten Village

the rmloading of cargoes, while at a few the
empty canoes often had to be taken around
by the portage path. In the order of ascent,
they were: Bapides des P^re (De Pere),
Petit Kakalin (now Little Bapids), La
Croche (at Kimberly), Grand Chnte (now
Appleton), and Winnebago Rapids (at
Doty's Island). The entire fall of the river,
in this distance, is about a hundred and
sixty-nine feet.

When Marquette and Joliet, with their
faithful helpers, toiled up this rocky stair-
way, the lower valley of the Fox was the
seat of a considerable Indian population,
there being clusters of cabins at several of
the rapids and on Doty's Island, which di-
vides the outlet of Lake Winnebago. On
the level lands which, from the tops of the
sloping banks, stretch away on either side,
were large fields of Indian com; for these
people were thrifty, as savages go, placing
their grain in caches for winter use, and
trading their surplus to neighboring tribes.

The father notes in his journal the ex-
treme difficulties of surmounting the rapids,
^^on account of both the Currents and the
ITl

Father Marquette

sharp Bocks, which Cut the Canoes and the
feet of Those who are obliged to drag them "
over the shallower places, or to pole them
amid the projecting boulders. No doubt this
laborious task, as with Allouez's party be-
fore them, was performed by the voyageurs,
while the explorers trudged along the banks
for several miles, bearing the small packs of
supplies.

At last, after making the final portage at
Doty's Island, they emerged upon the broad
expanse of Lake Winnebago, one of the most
charming of our large Western inland wa-
ters. Allouez, four years before, had named
it Lake St. Francois, and wrote : ^^ It is about
twelve leagues long and four wide, extends
from the North-Northeast to the South-
Southeast, and aboimds in fish; but is unin-
habited, on account of the Nadouecis
[Sioux], who are there held in fear.*'

Dablon's accoimt, a year later than Al-
louez's, thus refers to Lake Winnebago and
the upper Fox which flows into it from the
west:

"The fairest land possible to behold —
in every direction, prairies only, as far as
172

At the Mascouten Village

the eye can reach, cut by a river ^vhich gently
winds through it, and on which it rests the
traveler to paddle his canoe. The region of
forests and mountains is passed when one
arrives here, and nothing but little grove-
planted hills present themselves at intervals^
as if to offer their shade to the traveler, that
he may there find grateful shelter from the
Sun's heat.

^^ Nothing but elms, oaks, and other simi-
lar trees are seen here — and not those
which, growing commonly only on poor soil,
are merely fit to furnish bark for covering
Cabins or for making Canoes. Hence these
people know not what it is to travel by wa-
ter ; and have no other houses, for the most
part, than such as are made of rushes woven
together in the form of mats. Vines, plum-
trees, and apple-trees are readily found on
the way; and seem by their aspect to invite
the traveler to land and taste of their fruit,
which is very sweet and exceedingly abun-
dant

"The banks of this river, which flows
gently through the midst of these prairies,
are covered throughout with a certain plant
173

Father Marquette

bearing what is called here wild oats, of
which the birds are wonderfully fond. All
sorts of game, too, are so plenty that with-
out stopping long one can kill what he
chooses.

''All this prairie country, extending to
our knowledge more than three himdred
leagues in every direction — to say nothing
of its farther extent, of which we have no
knowledge — affords ample sustenance to the
wild cows [buffaloes], not infrequently en-
countered in herds of four or five hundred
each. These, by their abundance, furnish
adequate provision for whole Villages, which
therefore are not obliged to scatter by fami-
lies during their hunting season, as is the
case with the Savages elsewhere.''

Dablon, a true lover of nature as well as
of man, also writes at length of the buffaloes
seen upon his journey, of the great white
pelicans then numerous in these waters, of
" groves scattered here and there, which na-
ture seems to furnish solely for the gratifi-
cation of the eye ; ^ and exclaims at last, with
the enthusiasm of a bom canoeist: ^^One
does not tire of paddling over these lakes
174

At the Mascouten Village

and rivers when he meets with such diver-
sion."

Similar, no doxtbt, allowing for the differ-
ence between September and June, were now
the experiences of Marquette and Joliet
Cautiously they wended their way from one
projecting point to another, along the low-
lying western shore of Lake Winnebago,
until at last they found the place whence
emerge the upper waters of the Fox — a
broad bay fringed with marshes of wild rice,
beyond which rose gently swelling prairies,
backed on the horizon by oak openings.
Where to-day is the thriving manufacturing
city of Oshkosh, were then but a half-dozen
Indian wigwams at the junction of lake and
river.

As with Nicolet, and AUouez and Dablon,
our friends were not at present concerned
with these small wayside bands of Sacs,
Foxes, Winnebagoes, and Pottawattomies.
Like their predecessors along this path, they
were desirous of making their first stopping-
place the palisaded village of the Mascou-
tens, or " Fire Nation," which was situated
upon the banks of the upper Fox. No tribe
176

Father Marquette

of Western Indians excited more interest
among the French explorers than these same
Mascontens; historians and ethnologists
have earnestly discnssed their origin; while
Wisconsin antiquarians have for many years
held rival theories as to the location of this
particular village, so frequently referred to
in the Jesuit Relations and other French rec-
ords of the seventeenth century.

AUoueZy with more detail than was cus-
tomary with the Jesuits, placed the Mascon-
tens, in 1670, as but a day's paddling up the
Fox, from the mouth of the Wolf, and six
days' journey from the Mississippi; which,
with due regard to the character of the coun-
try, would seem to locate them somewhere in
the neighborhood of either Berlin or Prince-
ton — a league inland from the river, "in a
very attractive place, where beautiful Plains
and Fields meet the eye as far as one can
see." There are those who, not without
grounds for argument, would place this vil-
lage in the neighborhood of the Fox-Wiscon-
sin portage ; or of the present hamlet of Mar-
quette, on Lake Puckawa; or even nearer
Oshkosh than is Berlin. It is a friendly con-
17«

At the Mascouten Village

tention, giving flavor to the study of local
history, but need not on this occasion de-
tain ns.

Of more immediate concern to the reader
of the present narrative is the origin of this
interesting people, who aroused the curiosity
of the early French travelers. It is claimed
by a recent author, who has written at length
on this subject, that they derived their name,
** Fire Nation," from the fact that they were,
in very early times, extensive miners of cop-
per on the shores of Lake Superior, and used
fire to so soften the veins of ore that they
might chip off portions of it with their stone
hammers; from these making copper tools
of many shapes, which are now regarded with
curiosity in historical museums. Very dif-
ferent, however, was the opinion of Dablon,
who tells us: "The Fire Nation is errone-
ously so called, its correct name being
Maskoutenech, which means ^a treeless
country/ like that inhabited by these peo-
ple; but as, by changing a few letters, this
word is made to signify ^fire,' therefore
the people have come to be called the * Fire
Nation.' ''

18 177

Father Marquette

It is believed that some of their bands
once dwelt as far away as the Virginia moun-
tains, and were the Bocootawanaukes men-
tioned in Captain John Smith's history. It
is thought that they were once strong in the
Ohio Valley, and built many if not most of
the strangely shaped moimds which are still
to be seen there ; that they were at one time
dwellers in the southern peninsula of Michi-
gan ; and that the Wisconsin village was but
an outlying band, who had wandered far
from their kindred.

Marquette records that, just previous to
reaching the town, he " had the Curiosity to
drink the mineral Waters of the River that
is not Far from That village. I also took time
to look for a medicinal plant which a savage,
who knows its secret, showed to Father Al-
louez with many Ceremonies. Its root is
employed to Counteract snake-bite, God hav-
ing been pleased to give this antidote
Against a poison which is very common in
these countries. It is very pungent, and
tastes like powder when crushed with the
teeth; it must be masticated and placed upon
the bite inflicted by the snake." Specimens
178

At the Mascouten Village

of this he placed within his canoe, " in order
to examine it at leisure,"

It was upon the seventh of June when
the explorers reached the landing-place,
where they drew up their canoes, and had a
brisk walk of some two and a half miles in-
land. Upon a low eminence, in the midst of
the prairie, lay the village which by this time
had won fame as far away as Paris, in the
published Relations of two years past. It
was one of the largest Indian towns upon the
continent, for within the stout palisade there
were living, in common, bands from three
tribes, the Mascoutens, Miamis, and Kicka-
poos. Dablon wrote of them : " They form
together more than three thousand souls, and
are able to furnish each four hundred men
for the common defense against the Iroquois,
who pursue them even into these remote
districts."

Marquette's own journal is so meager, up
to the point of reaching the Mascouten vil-
lage, that, in order to enable our readers to
see the Fox River country as it appeared to
him, we have been obliged to borrow freely
from the accounts of Fathers Dablon and
179

Father Marquette

Allouez. But now that the explorers have
reached ^^ the limit of the discoverieB which
the French have made/' the missionary be-
comes more profuse in his descriptions^ and
henceforth we shall generally find it sufficient
to draw upon his narrative. Of the village
at which they were now quartered, he writes :
'^ This Village Consists of three Nations
who have gathered there — Miamis, Maskou-
tens, and Eikabous. The former are the
most civil, the most liberal, and the most
shapely. They wear two long locks over
their ears, which give them a pleasing ap-
pearance. They are regarded as warriors,
and rarely undertake expeditions without be-
ing successful. They are very docile, and
listen quietly to What is said to Them; and
they appeared so eager to Hear Father Al-
loues when he Instructed them that they gave
Him but little rest, even during the night.
The Maskoutens and Eikabous are ruder,
and seem peasants in Comparison with the
others. As Bark for making Cabins is scarce
in this country. They use Bushes ; these serve
Them for making walls and Boof s, but do
not afford them much protection against the
180

At the Mascouten Village

winds, and still less against the rains when
they fall abundantly. The Advantage of
Cabins of this kind is, that they make pack-
ages of Them, and easily transport them
wherever they wish, while they are hunting.

"When I visited them, I was greatly
Consoled at seeing a handsome Cross erect-
ed in the middle of the village, and adorned
with many white skins, red Belts, and bows
and arrows, which these good people had
offered to the great Manitou (This is the
name which they give to God). They did
this to thank him for having had pity On
Them during The winter, by giving Them
an abundance of game When they Most
dreaded famine.

" I took pleasure in observing the situa-
tion of this village. It is beautiful and very
pleasing; For, from an Eminence upon
which it is placed, one beholds on every side
prairies, extending farther than the eye can
see, interspersed with groves or with lofty
trees. The soil is very fertile, and yields
much indian com. The savages gather
quantities of plums and grapes, wherewith
much wine could be made, if desired/'
181

CHAPTER XVn

DIBGOYBBT OF THE MISSISSIPPI

Immbdiatblt upon their arrival, our ex-
plorers assembled the head men of the Mas-
conten village. Joliet appears to have been
the spokesman. ^^He told them," writes
Marquette, ^^that he was sent by Monsieur
Our Governor to discover New countries,
while I was sent by Gk>d to illumine them
with the light of the holy Gospel. He told
them that, moreover, The sovereign Master
of our lives wished to be known by all Na-
tions ; and that in obeying his will I feared
not the death to which I exposed myself in
voyages so perilous."

The American savage is fond of public
speaking. His eloquence consists largely of
figures of speech drawn from natural objects
and conditions. In all important negotia-
tions between the tribes, or between whites
and Indians, feasts and oratory, with much
ceremonial, were quite essential. In such
182

Discovery of the Mississippi

speeches each step of progress was marked
by a gift from the speaker to the persons
addressed, a courtesy to be paid in kind
by the person replying. Theoretically, this
was for the purpose of assisting those pres-
ent to remember what was said, whenever
they looked upon the present. To this curi-
ous custom, common to all the tribes, Mar-
quette alludes, in telling us that Joliet in-
formed his hearers ^Hhat we needed two
guides to show us the way; and We gave
them a present, by it asking them to grant
us the guides. To this they very Civilly con-
sented; and they also spoke to us by means
of a present, consisting of a Mat [of woven
reeds] to serve us as a bed during the whole
of our voyage."

Three days were passed with these hos-
pitable people. Upon the tenth of June, the
two Miamis who had been selected to serve
as guides ^^ embarked with us, in the sight
of a great crowd, who could not sufficiently
express their astonishment at the sight of
seven frenchmen, alone and in two canoes,
daring to undertake so extraordinary and so
hazardous an Expedition.'' It can well be
188

Father Marquette

imagined that as the little fleet set forth that
bright June morning, when Nature was in
her loveliest garb, the hearts of the adven-
turers swelled with enthusiasm, thinking of
the strange lands and stranger peoples which
they were destined soon to behold.

The Fox River, above this point, is but
a narrow creek winding in fitful curves
through widespread swamps of reeds and
wild rice. The labyrinth was, at that time,
frequently choked with vegetation, and with-
out guides the passage would have been well-
nigh impossible. Writes Marquette: "The
road is broken by so many swamps and small
lakes that it is easy to lose one's way, es-
pecially as the Biver leading thither is so
full of wild oats that it is difficult to find the
Channel."

Here comes the curious contradiction
which has given rise, as stated in the preced-
ing chapter, to discordant theories about the
location of the Mascouten village. For while
AUouez had very carefully stated that it was
but a day's journey above the junction of the
Wolf and the Fox — ^which would place it near
the present Berlin or Princeton — Marquette
184

Discovery of the Mississippi

tells us that ** at three leagues from Maskou-
tens was a Biver which discharged into the
Missisipi." If we are to accept this estimate,
the Wisconsin was somewhat less than eight
miles from the Mascoutens ; whereas Prince-
ton is sixty-five miles down the Pox River
from Portage, and Berlin twenty miles far-
ther. Upon this statement, Portage antiqua-
rians believe that the site was near their city,
which lies by the side of the swampy, portage
trail there separating the sluggish and insig-
nificant Fox from the broad, swift channel of
the Wisconsin.* It is reasonable, however,
to suppose that the person who copied Mar-
quette^s narrative for its first publication —
the explorer's original manuscript is prob-
ably not in existence — ^mistook trente (thirty)
for trois (three), for his handwriting was
difficult to read. Moreover, the maps made
by both Marquette and Joliet place the vil-
lage where AUouez declares that it was.

The path between the two opposite-flow-
ing streams — the waters of the Pox empty-
ing northeastward into the St. Lawrence sys-

* The explorer La Salle tersely describes this portage as
** an oak grove and a flooded meadow."
186

Father Marquette

tern, and those of the Wisconsin southwest-
ward into the Mississippi — is but a mile and
a half in length; Marquette calls it ''2700
paces." With high water in the Wisconsin,
this plain has frequently been flooded, so
that continuous canoe passage from the
Great Lakes to the Mississippi has been. pos-
sible. But such fortune did not await our
explorers; they were obliged to make the
portage, in that task being assisted by their
guides, "after which they returned home,
leaving us alone in this Unknown country,
in the hands of Providence. Thus we left
the Waters flowing to Quebeq, 4 or 500
leagues from here, to float on Those that
would thenceforth Take us through strange
lands. Before embarking thereon, we Be-
gan all together a new devotion to the
blessed Virgin Immaculate, which we prac-
tised daily, addressing to her special prayers
to place under her protection both our per-
sons and the success of our voyage; and,
after mutually encouraging one another, we
entered our Canoes."

The Wisconsin River, upon which fhey
were now embarked, presents a striking con-
186

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H I

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8 i

M a,

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Discovery of the Mississippi

trast to the Pox. Its valley is from three
to five miles broad, flanked on either side,
below the portage, by an undulating range
of imposing bluffs, from a hundred and fifty
to three hundred and fifty feet in height.
They are heavily wooded, as a rule, although
there is now, as then, much variety — pleas-
ant slopes and sheltered fields, on the sweet
herbage of which the travelers saw deer and
bujBfaloes peacefully grazing; naked water-
washed escarpments, rising sheer above the
stream; terraced hills, with eroded faces;
steep uplands, whose forest growths have
been shattered by tornadoes; and romantic
ravines, worn deep by spring torrents im-
patient to reach the river level.

Between these ranges stretches a wide
expanse of bottoms, either bog or sand-plain,
through which the swift current twists and
bounds, continually cutting out new channels
and filling old ones with the d^ris. As it
thus sweeps along, wherever its fancy list-
eth, here to-day and there to-morrow, it
forms innumerable islands, which greatly
add to the picturesqueness of the view.
These islands are often mere sand-bars,
187

Father Marquette

BometiiDes as barren as Sahara, again thick-
grown with willows and seedling aspens ; but
for the most part they are heavily wooded,
their banks gay with the season's flowers,
while luxuriant vines droop in graceful fes-
toons from trees which overhang the flood.
Marquette's own journal thus tells the
story of their trip: " The River on which we
embarked is called the Meskonsing.* It is
very wide; it has a sandy bottom, which
forms various shoals that render its naviga-
tion very difficult. It is full of Islands Cov-
ered with Vines. On the banks one sees fer-
tile land, diversified with woods, prairies,
and Hills. There are oak. Walnut, and
basswood trees; and another kind, whose
branches are armed with long thorns. We
saw there neither feathered game nor fish,
but many deer, and a large number of cattle.
Our Route lay to the southwest, and, after
navigating about 30 leagues, we saw a spot
presenting all the appearances of an iron
mine ; and, in fact, one of our party who had
formerly seen such mines, assures us that
The One which We found is very good and

* The earliest French name for the WiBoonsm.
188

Discovery of the Mississippi

very rich. It is Covered with three feet of
good soil, and is quite near a chain of rocks,
the base of which is covered by very fine
trees."

Upon the seventeenth of June, after a
voyage of seven days from the Mascontens,
the canoeists swiftly glided on the bubbled
torrent, through the flood-washed delta of the
Wisconsin, into the broad, sweeping current
of the Mississippi, at this point nearly a mile
in width. They gazed with rapture — " a Joy
that I cannot Express," writes the gentle
Marquette — ^upon one of the noblest scenes
in America. They had at last found the
object of their search, but their arduous
journey was still far from its end.

189

CHAPTER XVm

THE LIMIT OF THE JOURNEY

The upper valley of the Mississippi is
flanked on either side with rounded bluffs,
often three and four hundred feet in height.
Within this deep trough, at the Wisconsin's
mouth some three miles in width, the great
river winds in long and graceful curves, its
current divided by flood-washed willow is-
lands, flanked by shifting sand-bars black
with tangled roots and trunks of trees, the
stranded debris of many a springtime
freshet. Edging the shores are often intri-
cate bayous, boggy woods, and sandy mead-
ows, back of which lie fertile bottom-lands,
as at Prairie du Chien, which nestles under
protecting hills five miles above the spot
where our travelers first sighted their quest
— a quaint little city, the outgrowth of an
old Indian village and of the French fur
trade which centered at this meeting of the
waters. Sometimes the giant stream sweeps
190

a,
a.

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The Limit of the Journey

by the very feet of the hills, which in such
cases rise in imposing rock-faced cliffs,
decked with ferns and nodding columbines.
Northward and southward are long vistas
of curving hills and glinting water, shut in
by the converging ranges.

All these features were carefully noted
by the journalist of the voyage — the "high
Mountains," the "beautiful land," the is-
lands, the "slow and gentle" current, and
the depth of water, which they found to be
about fifty-three feet. He continues: "We
gently followed its Course, which runs
toward the south and southeast, as far as
the 42nd degree of Latitude. Here we
plainly saw that its aspect was completely
changed. There are hardly any woods or
mountains; The Islands are more beautiful,
and are Covered with finer trees. We saw
only deer and cattle, bustards, and Swans
without wings, because they drop Their plu-
mage in This country."

The travelers had soon to remember the

warning given them by the Menomonees, to

beware of "horrible monsters." The good

father thus describes those ,which now beset

191

Father Marquette

them: ''From time to time, we came upon
monstrous fish, one of whidi struck our
Canoe with such violence that I Thought that
it was a great tree, about to break the Canoe
to pieces. On another occasion, we saw on
The water a monster with the head of a
tiger, a sharp nose Like That of a wildcat,
with whiskers and straight. Erect ears ; The
head was gray and The Neck quite black;
but We saw no more creatures of this sort.
When we cast our nets into the water we
caught Sturgeon, and a very extraordinary
Kind of fish. It resembles the trout, with
This difference, that its mouth is larger.
Near its nose — ^which is smaller, as are also
the eyes — is a large Bone shaped Like a
woman's corset-bone, three fingers wide and
a Cubit Long, at the end of which is a disk
as Wide As one's hand. This frequently
causes it to fall backward when it leaps out
of the water.'' Li these formidable crea-
tures we are able to recognize the familiar
catfish of our Western rivers, the American
tiger-cat, and the paddlefish (or spoonbill).
The crude instruments which the explor-
ers used for determining their location were
199

The Limit of the Journey

not accurate, being sometimes half a degree
out of tke way, so that it is often difficult
to follow them. It appears, however, to
have been about the latitude of Bock Island
that they first found wild turkeys, and ob-
served that buffaloes were becoming abun-
dant. The boatmen, who daily sought game
for the party, killed one of these " wild cat-
tle,^'^ and Marquette describes the beast in
great detail — one of the first accounts which
we have of this useful animal, which once
was plentiful in most portions of the United
States. Marquette records that "they are
scattered about the prairie in herds; I have
seen one of 400."

It was necessary that the travelers should
be cautious, for they had no knowledge of
the country, and knew not what dangers
might suddenly beset them upon this mighty
waterway, whether from savages, from wild
beasts, or from unlooked-for perils of the
flood. They had thus far seen only animals,
birds, and fish; nevertheless a strict guard
was constantly maintained. "On this ac-
count," says the record, "we make only a
small fire on land, toward evening, to cook
w 198

Father Marquette

our meals; and, after supper, we remove
Ourselves as far from it as possible, and
pass the night in our Canoes, which we an-
chor in the river at some distance from the
shore. This does not prevent us from al-
ways posting one of the party as a sentinel,
for fear of a surprise/'

The adventurers had proceeded as far as
the forty-first degree of latitude, according
to their reckoning, '^ without discovering
anything,^' when, on the twenty-fifth of June,
they "perceived on the water's edge some
tracks of men, and a narrow and somewhat
beaten path leading to a fine prairie. We
stopped to Examine it ; and, thinking that it
was a road which Led to some village of
savages. We resolved to go and reconnoiter
it. We therefore left our two Canoes under
the guard of our people, strictly charging
Them not to allow themselves to be sur-
prised, after which Monsieur JoUyet and I
undertook this investigation — a rather haz-
ardous one for two men who exposed them-
selves, alone, to the mercy of a barbarous
and Unknown people. We silently followed
The narrow path, and, after walking About
194

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TlT

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The Limit of the Journey

2 leagues. We discovered a village on the
bank of a river, and two others on a Hill
distant abont half a league from the first."

Standing at a distance, the Frenchmen
shouted with all their energy, whereupon
the savages swarmed out of their huts and
sent four old men to meet them. '^ Two of
these bore tobacco-pipes, finely ornamented
and Adorned with various feathers. They
walked slowly, and raised the pipes to the
sun, seemingly offering them to it to smoke,
— without, however, saying a word.'' These
were calumets, or pipes of peace, and the
ceremony shows us that the Illinois Indians,
whom the explorers had now encountered,
were worshipers of the sun, as the master
of light and heat

The day was spent in speeches, feasts,
songs, and dances, which Marquette interest-
ingly describes at length in his journal, with
a chapter upon the characteristics and cus-
toms of the Illinois, of whom he formed a
highly favorable opinion. That night our
friends slept in the cabin of the chief; ''on
the following day we took Leave of him,
promising to pass again by his village, with-
195

Father Marquette

in four moons. He Conducted us to our
Canoes, with nearly 600 persons who wit-
nessed our Embarkation, giving us every
possible manifestation of the joy that Our
visit had caused thenL • • . They admire
our little Canoes, for they have never seen
any like them.''

Not far above the mouth of the Missouri
River, near the present Alton, IlL, they saw,
painted high up on the smooth surface of a
nearly perpendicular cliff, two hideous mon-
sters, the work of some Indian artist whose
imagination was well developed. '^They
are as large as a Calf," writes Marquette;
^^ they have Horns on their heads Like those
of deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard
Like a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's,
a body Covered with scales, and so Long a
tail that it winds all around the Body, pass-
ing above the head and going back between
the legs, ending in a Fish's tail. Green, red,
and black are the three Colors composing
the Picture." The missionary acknowledges
that he and his companion were at first much
alarmed at these strange specimens of na^
tive art, which sought to depict the spirits
196

The Limit of the Journey

which controlled the river. But it must be
remembered that, in the seventeenth century,
men even of the caliber of Joliet and Mar-
quette were more superstitious than now;
and these Frenchmen were threading an un-
known wilderness, filled with dangers of
many sorts, which excited their imaginations
to a high pitch.

The Missouri, of course, attracted their
attention. Marquette, with the true spirit
of the explorer, writes : " I hope by its means
to discover the vermillion or California sea.
Judging from The Direction of the course
of the Missisipi, if it Continue the same way,
we think that it discharges into the mexican
gulf. It would be a great advantage to find
the river Leading to the southern sea,
toward California. • • • I do not despair of
discovering It some day, if God grant me
the grace and The health to do so, in
order that I may preach The Gospel to all
The peoples of this new world who have so
Long Groveled in the darkness of infidel-
ity." Little he knew that the toils of
his present journey had planted the seeds
of death within him, and that his dream
197

Father Marquette

of reaching the Far West was to come to
naught.

His present concern was the painted
monsters, and the news that he had heard
of the customs of the strange tribes upon
the Missouri. Our canoeists, as they knelt
to their paddles, were talking earnestly
about these matters, when they ran into a
new and unexpected danger. The broad
and murky flood of the Missouri, burdened
with great masses of trees and detached
bog, issued forth with such violence that the
mingled currents became greatly agitated,
their boats were swirled around as if mere
chips, and they stood in imminent risk of
being upset.

Extricating themselves at last from this
peril, they proceeded happily, paddling and
sailing by turns, as the wind either favored
or retarded them. The Ohio's mouth, a mile-
wide estuary, flanked by low-lying plains,
was passed in due time ; rich deposits of iron
were found hard by. Ere long, mosquitoes
began to torment them. "We were com-
pelled to erect a sort of cabin on The water,,
with our sails as a protection against the
198

The Limit of the Journey

mosquitoes and the rays of the sun. While
drifting down The current, in this condition,
we perceived on land some savages armed
with gims, who awaited us." The black-
gown raised aloft the calumet given to him by
the Illinois ; whereupon the Indians, probably
of the warlike Chickasaw tribe, but " as much
frightened as we were," invited the French-
men ashore. They were found to possess
not only guns, but " hatchets, hoes. Knives,
beads, and flasks of double glass, in which
they put Their powder" — ^having obtained
these from tribes who traded with Spaniards
living upon the Gulf of Mexico.

Being told that they were now " no more
than ten days' journey from The sea," the
travelers took fresh courage. Buffaloes
were bellowing on the broad bottom-lands,
but could not be seen, because the banks were
"bordered with lofty trees" — cottonwoods,
elms, and basswoods. Small game was more
abundant, giving them fresh meat for their
modest cookery upon the shores. But their
caution increased, for this was a strange
land of forested morass, and hazards seemed
to lurk at every turn.
199

Father Marquette

Near the moutb of the St. Francis Biver,
in Arkansas, they came upon a village of
Mitchigameas, situated by the water's edge,
and were noisily attacked by the natives.
Some of the young men *^ embarked in great
wooden canoes" and hnrled dubs at the
strangers, while others attempted to swim
out in the strong current, apparently with
the view of upsetting their slender craft.
Marquette again displayed the calumet,
which was not at first successful in quelling
the uproar; but at last the old men quieted
the hot-bloods, and the talisman was respect-
ed. Two of the elders jumped into the ex-
plorers' canoes, and " made us approach the
shore, whereon we landed, not without fear
on our part."

'^ Passing the night among them, with
some anxiety," they embarked early on the
following day, with an interpreter who had
offered his services — ^^ an old man who could
speak a little Ilinois," the only one of the
six languages mastered by Marquette which
found upon these Southern waters a re-
sponsive ear. In order to obtain such in-
formation as they sought, they had been ad-
200

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« Pi

The Limit of the Journey

vised to visit an Arkansas village, eight or
ten leagues below. As escort thither, ** a
canoe containing ten savages went a short
distance ahead of ns."

The Arkansas Indians dwelt npon the
east side of the Mississippi, opposite the
mouth of the river which bears their name.
As the little flotilla approached this bankside
village of bark cabins, two canoes came out
to meet the visitors, and friendly relations
were at once established by means of the in-
valuable calumet. Our friends were pro-
fusely entertained by these civil-spoken
tribesmen, who produced from their number
a young man who was more familiar with the
Illinois dialect than was the interpreter
brought from the Mitchigamea. Corn and
dog's flesh were persistently forced upon the
white men, being cooked in earthen vessels
and served upon wooden platters, while wa-
termelons were brought as an especial treat.

The entire day was given up to this feast,
for Indians know no limit to their hospital-
ity. But in the midst of this surfeit of food,
and the accompanying dances, the explorers
were filling their note-books with what in-
201

Father Marquette

formation they could obtain concerning the
river below, the inhabitants along its bank,
and the beliefs and customs of their enter-
tainers. It appeared that the Arkansas
dwelt much in fear of the neighboring tribes,
such as the Chickasaws, who had obtained
guns from the Spanish traders to the south,
and prevented their passing down the river.
They themselves bought hatchets, knives,
and beads from tribes living toward the east,
who traded with Europeans, and from an
Illinois band who dwelt four days westward;
guns they were unable to obtain.

In the course of their oratory throughout
the day — Marquette dwelling upon the truths
of Christianity, and Joliet upon the power
of New France — the French leaders made
the usual presents to their hosts, but re-
ceived little in return, for the latter were
not wealthy, their principal possession being
buffalo-robes. During the night, some of
the envious natives sought to murder their
guests, and thus to possess themselves of the
store of trinkets which had been brought as
gifts to the savages ; but the chief put a stop
to these plots, and made the visitors a pres-
202

The Limit of the Journey

ent of his own calumet^ as a guarantee of
future safety.

Within, their own cabin, Joliet and Mar-
quette, who probably were too excited to sleep,
held " a council, to deliberate upon what we
should do — ^whether we should push on, or
remain content with the discovery which we
had made." They were now convinced that
"beyond a doubt, the Missisipi river dis-
charges into the florida or Mexican gulf, and
not to The east in Virginia. . . . We further
considered that we exposed ourselves to the
risk of losing the results of this voyage, of
which we could give no information if we
proceeded to fling ourselves into the hands
of the Spaniards — ^who, without doubt, would
at least have detained us as captives. More-
over, we saw very plainly that we were not
in a condition to resist Savages allied to The
Europeans, who were numerous, and expert
in firing guns, and who continually infested
the lower part of the river. Finally, we had
obtained all the information that could be
desired in regard to this discovery."

The explorers were assured by the In-
dians that they were, in any event, but two

Father Marquette

or three days' distance from the mouth of
the great waterway. In this, however^ their
reckoning was sadly at fault, for the junc-
tion of the Arkansas is seven hundred miles
from the gulf. Had they known this, they
probably would, great as were the dangers
before them, have ventured still farther upon
their way. As it was, they discreetly de-
termined to return home and report.

204

CHAPTER XTT

A WINTER AT ST. FBANQOIS XAYDSB

It was upon the seventeenth of July, just
two months after they had bidden farewell
to Mackinac, and a month after their dis-
covery of the great river at Prairie du Chien,
when the explorers took formal leave of the
feasting Arkansas, and set forth to retrace
their steps. Paddling against the strong
current was a far different exercise from
that of descending. It was now necessary
laboriously to cross and recross the broad
stream, threading their way among the is-
lands, in order to avoid the swiftest water.
The banks of the lower Mississippi are not
always easy for the canoeist to follow, for
deceptive bayous often lead far inland, be-
coming at last choked with overhanging trees
festooned with moss and vines, and neces-
sitating a long return to the proper channel.
As the summer weeks slowly wore on, the
temperature and the mosquitoes became al-
305

Father Marquette

most unbearable upon these malarial shores ;
and camping at night, often without fire, or
sleeping in the anchored canoes in order to
avoid surprise, with night fogs chilling them
to the bone, were unhealthful conditions for
any of these weary men — to one of Mar-
quette's rather delicate physique, it meant
the collapse which soon followed.

As far as the Illinois Biver, the toilsome
journey was accomplished without adven-
ture; for they had learned where perils
lurked, and by dint of extreme caution avoid-
ed them. It was pleasant news to be told
that the Illinois offered a shorter route
to Lake Michigan than the Pox- Wisconsin
waterway, and led past villages of Illinois
Indians, whose apparent leaning toward
Christianity had long ago won the heart of
the black-gown, when he had met these
people at La Pointe. The travelers deter-
mined, therefore, to use this route. Writes
Marquette: "We have seen nothing like
this river that we enter, as regards its
fertility of soil, its prairies and woods; its
cattle, elk, deer, wildcats, bustards, swans,
ducks, paroquets, and even beaver. It is/'

A Winter at St. Fran9ois Xavier

he continued, "wide, deep, and still, for
65 leagues."

At a place about seven miles below the
present city of Ottawa, they visited a village
of seventy-four long cabins, each of these
housing several families. It was called Kas-
kaskia — but was not the town of the same
name, some two hundred and fifty miles
southwestward, that afterward became fa-
mous in Western history. Here the stran-
gers were well received during their stay of
three days, and Marquette, in response to an
invitation to establish a mission among his
hosts, promised to return for that purpose.

From this place they were conducted to
Lake Michigan by one of the chiefs and a
small party of young warriors. By exactly
what route our friends were guided is not
known. From the Des Plaines, the northern
fork of the Illinois, there were two ways of
reaching the great lake by canoe — either by
carrying the craft over a slight watershed
into the Chicago River, which we know to
have been the path usually chosen in later
days by explorers, fur-traders, and soldiers ;
or by similarly portaging to the neighboring
207

Father Marquette

Calumet, which empties into the lake at the
present South Chicago. Antiquarians are
divided in their opinions as to which of these
was chosen by the friendly Indians ; for, in-
asmuch as Marquette appears to have taken
the same route in returning the following
year, and dwelt upon its banks for several
months, the interesting question arises,
whether or not he can be counted as a pio-
neer settler of the giant city of the West.
Neither Joliet^s map nor Marquette's is suf-
ficiently detailed to solve this problem, and
the latter's journal is equally obscure. Most
historians have, however, favored the route
known to have been afterward most used,
that of the Chicago Biver.

At last reaching Lake Michigan, by
whichever portage, the two canoes boldly
struck out along the western shore, which, for
nearly the entire distance of three hundred
miles, consists of undulating bluffs of whit-
ish clay: sometimes projecting, beachless,
far into the lake, again receding in graceful
curves which enclose broad beadbies of sand,
thick strewn with willows and coarse sedges.
Progress here was not rapid. A strong

A Winter at St. Fran9ois Xavier

southward current is notioeable upon this
coast, so that later canoe expeditions to the
Illinois country adopted a reverse route, fol-
lowing the west bank in going and the east
in returning; and the waves of this inland
sea, particularly when lashed by northern
and eastern gales, often run so high as to
swamp such slender boats as those in which
journeyed these seven adventurous French-
men. By night, or during stormy weather,
they camped upon the strand; like Indians,
huddling driftwood together to sustain their
crude mats of woven reeds as a shelter
against wind and rain.

Green Bay is separated from Lake Michi-
gan by a bold peninsula some eighty miles
long. About half-way down its length,
Sturgeon Bay deeply indents it from the
west, the head of this water being separated
from the lake by a sandy plain some two
miles in width. To those journeying by
water between Green Bay and points upon
the Michigan lake-shore, a hundred and fifty
miles of weary paddling could be saved by
carrying canoes over the intervening neck of
land, which had from time immemorial been
16 X 209

Father Marquette

used by Indians as a portage path. In our
day, when larger craft are needed, a United
States Government canal connects the bay
and the lake at this point

The adventurers at last arrived at that
point upon the coast where the old portage
trail led from the water's edge up the rocky
bank, and disappeared within the primeval
forest of pine. Their canoes, now no doubt
sadly worn by the long, rough voyage, were
carried upon the heads of some of the party,
while others strung upon their shoulders the
packs of food and shelter-mats. All, appar-
ently, were spent with toil and enfeebled by
disorders incident to their hazardous jour-
ney through strange lands, during which
they had often lacked proper food, shelter,
and rest. The rough trail, under the somber
woodland arches, must have been traveled
with some diflSculty and with many pauses by
the wayside; but the tonic odor of the pines
somewhat revived them, and it was with joy
unspeakable that finally they launched their
little vessels upon Sturgeon Bay, whose
waters opened an uninterrupted path to their
friends and countrymen at De Pere,
210

A Winter at St. Fran9ois Xavier

At the end of September they reached
their destination, the Jesuit mission of St.
Francois Xavier, by the side of the lowest
rapids of the Fox — ^whence, four months pre-
vious, they had started forth aglow with ex-
pectation and in the bloom of healthful
youth. Marquette has left us, in his simple
tale, no word concerning their reception.
But we know full well that it must have been
a glad reunion. We can, in imagination,
picture the joyful tears and embraces with
which the seven sick and weary men were
greeted upon their landing — ^black-gowns,
donnas, servants, and perhaps a trader or
two, hurrying down to the river^s brink, with
shouts of triumphant welcome; stolid sav-
ages lining the banks above, silently wonder-
ing at tiiis safe return of the pale faces from
those unspeakable terrors with which tribal
traditions peopled unknown lands. Then, in
the little bark chapel, prayers of thanksgiv-
ing for the deliverance of these children of
God from the dangers of field and flood ; and
that night, by the fire in the long council-hut,
no doubt weary harangues of welcome by the
chiefs, with pipes of peace circling around
211

Father Marquette

the squatted throng, and grunts of satisfac-
tion at the words of Marquette and Joliet,
who skilfully clothed their accounts in that
flowery language so essential in an Indian
speech*

It was too late, this season, for Joliet to
undertake the long return journey. Before
he could reach Quebec winter would set in
and entrap him on the way. Moreover, it
was necessary that they should all recruit
their strength. Marquette, having been
transferred to St. Francois Xavier mission,
was at home ; even had he not been, travel
for him was out of the question, for of all
the party he had been most enfeebled by the
expedition which had brought the great river
of the Mississippi into the knowledge of the
French.

The long winter at De Pere was passed
quietly by our heroes. Each wrote his 4>wn
report of the discovery — Marquette's in the
form of a letter to his superior-general, Fa-
ther Dablon; Joliet's, doubtless more de-
tailed, was intended for the governor of New
France, who had sent him thither. They
made each a map of the country visited; and
213

1> '«

8 I

A Winter at St. Francois Xavier

Joliet appears to have prepared other pa-
pers of importance concerning the expedi-
tion — ^bnt exactly what they were we shall
never know. No doubt he entertained him-
self with trips to outlying villages, with the
fur-traderSy or accompanying the mi^ion-
arieSy who were ever on the move ; and Mar-
quette of course assisted, so far as his
strength would allow, in the regular work
of the mission — baptizing the sick, the dying,
and children; giving solace to the weary in
heart, losing no opportunity for instructing
the simple tribesmen in the mysteries of
Christianity, and combating the jealous and
ever-troublesome medicine-men.

When the time arrived for Mackinac
straits to be cleared of ice, Joliet bade fare-
well to his friend, and, with his crew of boat-
men, set forth in high spirits upon his voy-
age to Quebec. He passed in safety down
the surging flood of the Ottawa Biver route
as far as La Chine rapids, just above Mon-
treal, when his canoe was there upset, his
crew and all his papers were lost, and he
himself barely missed a similar fate, after
struggling in the tumultuous waters for four
213

Father Marquette

hours. Thus robbed of his journal and
elaborate map of the new country, poor
Joliet was in a sorry plight when finally he
reached the little capital of New France. In
the Jesuit Relation of that year, Father Da-
blon, who had " interviewed '* the luckless
explorer, wrote (August 1, 1674) a brief,
hurried account of the discovery, "put to-
gether after hearing him converse, while
waiting for the relation, of which father
Marquette is keeping a copy."

Joliet does not appear to have succeeded in
winning that immediate recognition from the
government of New France which he thought
due him. For several years he held minor
positions ; but, six years after the discovery,
was granted extensive fishing privileges upon
the lower St. Lawrence River, and in 1680 was
given, together with a public office, the island
of Anticosti, also a profitable fishing-ground.
Upon this island he resided with his family ;
and was growing rich, when in 1690 Phips^s
fleet destroyed his establishment and he was
ruined. At the time of his death (1700), al-
though owning a large tract of land near Que-
bec, he was suffering from poverty,
214

A Winter at St. Fran9ois Xavier

Father Marquette, seeking neither fame
nor riches, was content, in his humble home
upon the Fox, with reporting to his superior-
general. This account, together with his
map of the region, was in due time for-
warded to Quebec, probably by the hands of
Ottawa Indians going thither in a fleet of
canoes upon their annual trip to attend the
great rendezvous of Indians and French
traders upon the lower St. Lawrence.

The original map drawn by Marquette
can still be seen in the archives of St. Mary^s
College, in Montreal. But the whereabouts
of his manuscript narrative of this famous
voyage is unknown; our extracts are taken
from a copy made by Father Dablon, which
still exists in these archives. Dablon^s " in-
terview*' with Joliet was not published in
Paris until Marquette was dying in the land
of the Illinois; while the latter's full report
of the discovery did not see print until six
years after he had passed away. He could
never have known of the unfortunate loss of
Joliet's papers, and therefore died unaware
that he alone was the reporter of the expedi-
tion. For only his journal, safely delivered
215

Father Marquette

to the snperior-generaly was published to the
world. The man who cared not for fame un-
wittingly won it; while the one who sought
honors gained, because of an accident, but
slight recognition, and has only in our own
time come to be generally recognieed as a full
partner in the great discovery.

216

CHAPTER XX

RBLIEF IN DEATH

As a result of hardships endured upon
the voyage of discovery, Father Marquette
had acquired an aihnent which defied all at-
tempts at cure. He wished, most eagerly,
to return to his mission in Illinois, which he
had promised to revisit early in the year.
His good friend Joliet had now departed for
the East, leaving him at St. Frangois Xavier,
impatient to take up the Southern journey.
But the spring wore on, and then the sum-
mer, yet he was still a sick man, unable to
wander far from even such small comforts
as the little mission hut afforded, and ^^he
was giving up the hope of undertaking a
second*' voyage.

In the early autumn, however, he thought
himself cured, and sought from his superior-
general permission to pass the winter among
the Illinois. Orders acceding to his wishes
at last came from Quebec, and he started
from De Pere upon the twenty-fifth of Octo-
217

Father Marquette

ber, 1674, after thirteen months of unwelcome
inactivity. With him were two men, Pierre
Porteret and one called Jacques, whose last
name is unrecorded ; one of these had accom-
panied him upon the first voyage.

The details of this second and last expedi-
tion are given in a diary kept by the mission-
ary until within a few weeks of his death.
The original manuscript, blotted and weath-
er-stained, is still preserved as a precious
relic at St. Mary's College, in Montreal. Ac-
companying it is an account written by Fa-
ther Dablon, gathered partly from this diary
and partly from conversations with the com-
panions of Marquette. From both together,
we obtain these particulars of the closing
months of the devoted apostle to the Illi-
nois.

At the Sturgeon Bay portage, they joined
a fleet of nine canoes — four filled with Illi-
nois Indians, and five with Pottawattomies,
all bound for Kaskaskia, which had been vis-
ited by Marquette the year before. Follow-
ing up the western shore of Lake Michigan,
they were, throughout their voyage of some-
what over a mdnth, much distressed by
218

§--^ ■

6'
9

f *-3

^fjt.u^c^^ f^^^ '^ '. , ^ ^ e^u€*i^ fu§//iach,

f/J^4jc^ dCcti.. jfujL ^pu ttrfuf oiu^ pi^ttj » .

\u*^ ^u^t^ ^^<~~^ l^'^tu^ jL AtiUHt^ ^ ^Li^«r^>»<: ./<»*r ^.mm*^.; <»*<-

^^ -/rW- ^**^ ^^«^ ^***:»*e«l , ^ yilu^/^i^-r/ rfw-AwTit^ ^ <)&^ ^^^t^uMn^f**- '
'■Ac^ dtlfn^hL -^ taa*^^ A^Ati/c^^ dtC^*n/^t$4^ ^jtorf^f/e***- ^UuGur /jliu)( ^.^

^u. £»uJL. Mt*a^ seitcct/ ^^ iu.jU- ra£4ut*u.t^ ^ ^uu^»/ i /tmoi t fi^ .i >^#dW^
^UU^t^-^^^'*"^ ^^»uMu*<^4»^^t0ct^ U*^, ^ ^W ditpi^ ^^JL ^^jtuituj /»Mi^

^fj,^ w«*/^^^w icJi^^^'^**-e*^'^^j:zt

Ailk/^w-^^ e^y^L^^^'^^'^; ^^^yf*^^^^ ^'^ **^'i ./ .

'■i^^ ..i^MkL L^:^,.

A PAGE OF MARQUETTE'S JOURNAL, 1674-75.

(Original MS. in St. Mary's College archives, Montreal. Reproduced from the Jesuit Relations,
vol. lix, by permission of Barrowrs Brothers Co.)

Relief in Death

stormy weather and cold. Frequently were
they detained two and three days at a time,
and on one occasion five days, waiting for
" the great agitation of the lake " to subside.
Blinding snow-storms sometimes enveloped
them ; often floating masses of ice prevented
their landing; several times they met friend-
ly Indians upon the shores — among them a
stray band of Mascoutens — and stopped and
parleyed with them; an important occupa-
tion was the hunting of game — turkeys, geese,
partridges, deer, and buffaloes.

During the first half of this long journey,
the monotony of which the father often
sought to vary by walking along the beach
while his canoe kept within hailing distance,
he was in tolerable health. But as soon as
the snow began to fall, it was evident that
the constant exposure — for slight indeed was
the shelter that he could obtain in the little
hut of reeds reared upon the wind-swept
beaches — was too great for the stricken man
to endure. He was again seized with his ail-
ment, and (December 4) putting into the
Chicago River, "which was frozen to the
depth of half a foot,^' had perforce to pass
219

Father Marquette

the winter there, in a wretdied apology of
a cabin ereeted hy hia men ^near the por-
tage, 2 leagues np the river." They were
visited oeeasionally by deputations of sym-
pathetic minoiSy who expressed mnch sor-
row at the missionary's plight; and, bring-
ing gifts and medicines, besought him to
proceed to their villages as soon as might
be. Early in January, a Frendi trader, op-
erating eighteen leagues away, sent the good
man dried blueberries and com by the hands
of a surgeon who was passing the winter at
the trading camp.

It will be remembered that when the
young scholar of Laon, Jacques Marquette,
was dreaming, far away in sunny France, of
following in the footsteps of the great mis-
sionary St Francois Xavier, he prayed that
to him, also, might come the blessed experi-
ence of carrying the Gospel of Christ to
many strange nations, and then of dying
alone in the wilderness. Plainly he now per-
ceived his weakness increasing from day to
day, ''that God was granting to him the
favor which he had so many times besought
from him.'' Informing his sorrowing com-
220

"nr^TWwn

o _

< d

° s

H B

W ^

2 ^

M
P

>»

^ CO

Relief in Death

panions of his approaching end, he exhorted
them ^^as much as his strength permitted^"
but passed the greater part of his time in
prayer.

The winter had been unusually harsh
upon this almost treeless waste of alternat-
ing swamp and sand-dunes, upon which, a
century and a half later, the city of Chicago
was reared. But the approach of spring
brought renewed vitality to the poor invalid,
and in the closing days of March the three
Frenchmen set out to pursue their voyage
to the Illinois villages upon the river of that
name. They "spent eleven Days upon the
Way, during which time he had occasion to
suffer much, both from his own Illness, from
which he had not entirely recovered, and
from the very severe and unfavorable weath-
er.'' That his health had suddenly grown
much worse, is evident from the fact that
the last entry in his journal is dated the
sixth of April, while he and his men were
awaiting favorable weather to descend the
Des Plaines Biver. Apparently he did not
again set his pen to paper.

Beaching the great village of the Illinois

Father Marquette

upon the eighth, ''he was received as an
angel from Heaven.'' After considerable
instmction, the missionary, three days be-
fore Easter, addressed the savages at a
general conncil, ''which he called together
in the open Air, the Cabins being too small
to contain all the people. It was a beantif nl
prairie, close to a village, which was Selected
for the great Council." A large framework
had been bnilt of saplings, and covered with
reed mats and bearskins; upon lines
stretched near the temporary altar erected
within this slender tabernacle, were hung
"several pieces of Chinese taffeta, attached
to these four large Pictures of the blessed
Virgin, which were visible on all Sides.''
Seated in a circle around the father were five
hundred chiefs and elders, while all about
stood the young men, to the number of a
thousand. For this was an unusually large
village, composed of five or six hundred
families.

Father Marquette was no doubt a preach-
er of rare power. Not only on this occasion,
but for several days following, "he was lis-
tened to by all those peoples with universal
222

Relief in Death

Joy; and they prayed him with most earnest
Entreaty to come back to them as soon as
possible, since his sickness obliged him to
return. The father, on his Side, expressed
to them, the affection which he felt for them,
and the satisfaction that they had given him ;
and pledged them his word that he, or some
other of our fathers would return to Carry
on that mission so happily Inaugurated.
This promise he repeated several times,
while parting with them to go upon his Way ;
and he set out with so many tokens of regard
on the part of Those good peoples that, as a
mark of honor they chose to escort him for
more than 30 leagues on the Road, vying with
each other in taking Charge of his slender
baggage.''

The end was not far distant. Realizing
that death might claim him at any moment,
the drooping apostle, supported by his two
devoted servants, painfully found their way
back to the mouth of Chicago River. His
destination was now the mission of St.
Ignace, where, if God so willed, he might
lay down this mantle of flesh, and pass to
his reward.

223

Father Marquette

To reach the straits of Mackiiiac, he must
needs proceed down the eastern shore of
Lake Michigan, taking advantage of the
north-setting current, which soon came to be
followed by the fleets of the fur-traders.
Day by day, when weather permitted, the lit-
tle canoe was propelled along the coast — in
the best of seasons, a slow and painful jour-
ney. But in April and early May, chilling
gales often lash the sea into fury; and now
there were but two rowers, with a heavy bur-
den between them, as they knelt to their sor-
rowful task. As for the poor young mis-
sionary, who had so long been suffering mar-
tyrdom in the cause of the Master, '^his
strength was so rapidly diminishing that his
two men despaired of being able to bring
him alive To the end of their journey. In-
deed," continues Father Dablon, '^ he became
so feeble and exhausted that he was imable
to assist or even to move himself, and had to
be handled and carried about like a child."

The eastern coast of Lake Michigan pre-
sents an entirely different appearance from
that of the Wisconsin side. The prevalent
western winds have, through the ages, swept

Relief in Death

the beach sand into great white hills which
so closely fringe the shore as to present a
most forbidding aspect to the traveler by
water. Here and there this bleak rampart
is deeply cleft by rivers, forcing their way
through to the great basin without — ^thus
furnishing harbors, wherein storm-driven
craft may enter and obtain shelter behind
the protecting range of dunes.

Within the mouths of several such rivers
did our weary canoeists camp by night or
during storms — that of St. Joseph, also a
pathway to the Mississippi, afterward used
by La Salle's and many another famous ex-
pedition to the South ; and those of Kalama-
zoo, Grand, and Muskegon, upon whose far-
stretching banks the Michigan fur trade long
flourished under French, English, and Amer-
icans in turn.

Throughout the voyage, Marquette's
chief thoughts were of his devoted compan-
ions, and of preparation for his own end.
As he lay, reclining upon reed-mats in the
bottom of the canoe, or upon the sand within
their shelter-hut, he frequently gave relig-
ious instruction to his boatmen, who listened
i« 225

Father Marquette

to him as one divinely inspired, speaking to
ihem from the edge of the grave. His in-
structions as to what was to be done when
the death-agony was upon him, and concern-
ing the disposition of his body, were most
minute. ^*He spoke of all these things,"
writes Dablon, "with so great tranquillity
and presence of mind that one might have
supposed that he was concerned with the
death and funeral of some other person, and
not with his own."

" Thus did he converse with them as they
made their way upon the lake — until, hav-
ing perceived a river, on the shore of which
stood an eminence that he deemed well suited
to the place of his interment, he told them
that That was the place of his last repose."
This river, which for several miles inland
takes on the character of a long, narrow lake,
was what is now called the P6re Marquette ;
upon its shore has been built the Michigan
city of Ludington.

The day was not far spent, and the weath-
er being favorable, the boatmen wished to
proceed farther upon their way. But, Da-
blon tells us, " God raised a Contrary wind^
226

<
W
Q

2 "fl

is I

>»
p

Relief in Death

which compelled them to return^ and enter
the river which the father had pointed out.
They accordingly brought him to the land,
lighted a little fire for him, and prepared
for him a wretched Cabin of bark. They
laid him down therein, in the least uncom-
fortable way that they could ; but they were
so stricken with sorrow that, as they have
since said, they hardly knew what they were
doing."

While his men were tearfully engaged
about him in the business of the camp. Fa-
ther Marquette spent the brief remainder of
his life in prayer. They especially heard
him give thanks to God for being a mission-
ary of Christ, and above all for dying " as
he had always prayed, in a Wretched cabin
in the midst of the forest and bereft of all
human succor." Between the hours of eleven
and midnight, upon the same day, — Satur-
day, the eighteenth of May, 1675, — "with a
countenance beaming and all aglow, he ex-
pired without any Struggle, and so gently
that it might have been regarded as a pleas-
ant sleep."

527

CHAPTER XXI

MABQUBTCB'8 PliAGB IN HUTTOBT

BuBTiNO the body of their master as
directed, and planting at his feet a large
cross in order to mark the grave, the sor-
rowing survivors harried on as best they
could to St Ignace to report the loss; and
during the following summer were in Que-
bec, bearing similar tidings.

The sad news soon spread far and wide
throughout the missions of the upper lakes*
The following winter, some Klskakons,
whom Marquette had instructed at La
Pointe, hunted near the shores of Lake
Michigan. In the spring, upon their return,
they sought ^^ the grave of their good father,
whom they tenderly loved," desiring to carry
his bones, after the fashion of Indians, to
St Ignace, where they now dwelt

In accordance with their custom, they dis-
sected the body, ^' cleansed the bones and ex-
posed them in the sun to dry; then, carefully
32»

^ z,

.2 I:

3^ c3

Marquette's Place in History

laying them in a box of birch-bark, they set
out to bring them to our mission of St Ig-
nace." Thirty canoes, filled with both Kis-
kakons and Iroquois, formed the funeral
procession. When, after a voyage of nearly
two hundred and fifty miles, they drew near
the strand of St. Ignace, Father Nonvel, now
superior of the Ottawa mission, accompanied
by Father Pierson, rowed out and " put the
usual questions to them, to make sure that
It was really the father's body which they
were bringing." Satisfied with the replies,
the two priests ^^ Intoned the de profundis
in the presence of the 30 Canoes, which were
still on the water, and of the people who were
on the shore."

Upon being taken to the church, the body
'^remained exposed under the pall, all that
Day, which was whitsun-monday, the 8th of
June; and on the morrow, after having ren-
dered to it all the funeral rites, it was low-
ered into a small Vault in the middle of the
church, where it rests as the guardian angel
of our outaouacs [Ottawas] mission. The
savages often come to pray over his tomb."

The little church at St. Ignace was de-

Father Marquette

stroyed by fire in 1700, and for a century
and three-quarters all traces of the site and
of Marquette's resting-place were lost. But
in September, 1877, Father Edward Jacker,
a learned missionary priest then in charge
of the parish of St. Ignace, discovered the
few mortal remains of his great predecessor
— some small fragments of bone, together
with scraps of the birch box in which the
body had been encased by the Easkakons two
centuries before. About a fourth of these
relics are now exhibited in the church of St.
Ignace; the others, in the Jesuit college in
Milwaukee, which bears his name«

Above Marquette's gra^e, upon the old
mission site, has been reared an untasteful
monument of marble, visited and photo-
graphed each summer by thousands of tour-
ists — for the once far-away straits of Macki-
nac, where Marquette, Dablon, and Pierson
zealously sought to convert the nomadic
tribes of the wilderness, is now one of the
most popular resorts in America. In the
Capitol at Washington is shown another
monument, a well-executed ideal statue of
our hero, by an accomplished Italian sculptor,
230

TRENTANOVE'S STATUE OF MARQUETTE.

(Now in the Capitol at Washington ; a replica, in bronze, \» at Marqnette, Mich.
The subject is idealized ; there is no attempt at a portrait.)

Marquette's Place in History

the gift of the State of Wisconsin; but the
jaunty pose and well-groomed aspect of
this marble effigy surely do not represent
the son of Laon as he was. Better, by far,
the reputed portrait which we give as fron-
tispiece to this volume — discovered by curi-
ous chance in Montreal a few years since,
and having strong claim to probability. In
this we may trace the lineaments of a man
who at least might have resembled Marquette
in gentleness and spiritual force. Unfortu-
nately, no other portrait bearing any prob-
able resemblance to our hero is known to be
in existence.

Father Marquette died in his thirty-
eighth year, after an experience of less than
nine years as a missionary. Soon ordered,
after his arrival in Canada, to the then far
Northwest, he toiled in a comparatively nar-
row field, until his great expedition in Jo-
lief s company brought his name prominent-
ly before the world. We have seen that the
news of that voyage had barely been pub-
lished before he fell a victim to the rigors
of his task. Tet in that brief period his
231

Father Marquette

character had deeply impressed itself upon
the Ottawa missions. No one has better de-
scribed him than Dablon, in a circular letter
addressed to the members of the order, re-
citing the death and virtues of his friend.
Writes the superior-general: '^He always
labored with much fatigue and great success
at the conversion of the savages in our most
arduous missions among the Outawas. He
was one of the most accomplished Mission-
aries that we had. He possessed all the vir-
tues of one, to a sovereign degree : universal
zeal, an angelic chastity, an incomparable
kindness and sweetness, a childlike candor,
a very close union with God. • • . I should
never finish this letter were I to attempt to
say all the good that we know of him . . .
we have every reason to believe that after
having lived as a true missionary, and died
as an apostle, God took him away from us
BO early only to reward him in heaven for
all his labors."

It is idle to ask whether to Joliet or to
Marquette shall be given the greater credit
for the discovery of the Mississippi. Their
names, in this connection, must always be

Marquette's Place in History

meBtioned in commOB; the priest, certainly,
was as important to the expedition as was
the civilian, and it is to the Jesuit that we
owe the record. Bnt, apart from this incident
in his career, Father Marquette stands in
history as typical of the highest ideals and
achievements in the splendid missionary en-
terprise of the Jesuits of New Prance. Oth-
ers of his order, in America, were doubtless
greater than he, suffered more acutely, spent
more years in the service ; but popular imagi-
nation in America has perhaps more gener-
ally centered upon the hero of this tale than
upon any of his fellows. He was, in truth, a
man of action as well as ideas; a true ex-
plorer as well as a scholastic ; a rare linguist ;
a preacher of undoubted capacity ; gifted with
unusual powers of mastery over the minds
of fierce savages; and his saintly character
will long remain an inspiration to men of
every creed and calling.

283

INDEX

ABE

ABENAKI Indians, Jemiti
among, 40, 101, 1(»,

Acadia, Jesuita in, 46.

Acbiliisouiane Indiana, 64.

Adaisan Indians, 46.

Albanel, Charles, Jesuit mission-
aiy, 188.

Albany (N. T.), fur trade at, 49, 60.

Algonkin Indians, described, 89-
41, 46 ; language, 77, 88, 186 ; at
Sault, 66; at Klaokinao, 110;
trade with Quebec, 146.

AUouez, Claude Jean, Jesuit mis-
sionarj, 16; at La Fointe, 64,
70-78, 74, 78, 77, 100, 166; at
Sault, 166; on Green Bay, 78,
153, 16(m60 ; at Point Keweenaw,
100 ; among Mascoutens, 186-188,
175, 176, 178, 180, 184, 186 ; on Fox
River, 160, 160, 178, 175 ; on Wolf
Birer, 161 ; at De Pere, 167-168 ;
superior of Ottawa mission, 66,
66, 60, 110, 119.

Alton (HI.), Joliet and Marquette
near, 106.

Amiooure Indians, 64.

Andr6, Louis, Jesuit missionary,
at Manitoulin Island, 106, 106 ;
Sault, 110; De Fdre, 117, 108-
164, 168.

Anticosti Island, Joliet on, 814.

Appleton (Wis.), 171.

Arkansas Indians, JoUet and Mar-
quette among, 900-9M.

CHA
Ashland (Wis.), 70.
Assiniboine fwdia^Wt meet Mar*

quette, 88.
Attacapan Indians, 46.

BEARS, 78, 180, 107.
Beaver Indians, 48.

Beavers, 180.

Beothukan Indians, 41

Berlin (Wis.), 176, 184, 186.

Beschefer, Thierry, Jesuit mis-
sionary, 80, 147.

Biard, Pierre, Jesuit missionary,
15,84.

Black robe (black gown), Indian
name for Jesuits, 88, 46, 68, 78,
106, 110, 181.

Br6beuf , Jean de, Jesuit misslon-
aiy, 15.

Bressani, Ftancesoo aioseppe, Jes-
uit missionary, 15.

Buffaloes, 78, 174, 187, 188, 191, 198,
199, 819.

Burrows Brothers Co., reprint of
Jesuit Relations, zi, td.

CADDOAN Indians, 46.
Cape Breton Island, Jesuits
on, 46.
Casson, Fraagois DoUier de, at

Sault, 188-181.
Cayuga Indians, 41.
Ohabanel, NoSl, Jesuit missionary,
15.

235

Father Marquette

OHA

tolDMld^

, FtofTi Jonpli Kaito,

r.ift.

vltt. SeeaJMLAPointe.
Cb0rokMliMltaiM,4&
Chlesfo, Joiifll and MMrqaetto «k»

iz« 107, 106 ; MmqiMtt At, »•-

in,m.

CkicloMW iDdtaM, : JoUet and
Marqoette amosf , IM. Ml.

Choctaw IndlaBiktf.

OolUnffwood (Ont), M.
OoloradoIiMliaiM,4ft.

M-ir, UM, 1», 177.

Or— ImMaiM, 40» «; In Ottawa

•4;

(>eekliidiaiia,4&

•^-^ rionary, 16; Mqierlor at
flanlt, 60, M, 71, 110, 160-161, 165-
168; supflrior-ceMral, 111-111,
117, IM, 166, m, no, aO; de-
■oribea Ma^lrlnae, 87-80, 04-«6;
dewnribea MiMiHiiipl, 110-118;
dMcribea Fom. Btrer, 171-176;
anung MaaooutMia, 116, 176, 177,
170 ; at De Para, 160-161, 165-166;
''InterTlewa** JoUet, 114, 115;
narratlYa of
and burial, 118, m-HO, nSL

•»y,i6.

Doer, HO.

Dolaware iBdiaai, 60.

Do Fore (Wis.), orlgiB of name, 168,
171 ; Niooletat, 168; Joonlt mte-
•Ion, ix, 166-160; deocribod by
DablOB, 165-168 ; AUoiioi at, 157-

168; Andr«, 168, 168, 168; JoUet
aBdMarqiMtfto, 166, 166, 168-171,
110«7; Maiqnetto fflat, 111-117.

Do Soto, Fernando, diaoovon Mio-
■i«4ipi,180.

Detroit (Mich.), foonded, 110.

Donnte (given men), oompanione
of Jeeulte, 86, 87, 111, 114, 166,
160.

Do<y^Mand,JoliotandMamMtHi
at, 171, 171.

DrfUUettea, Qabriel, Jeeoit iate>
rionary, 16 ; in New England, »,
101; inatruota Marquette, »47,
188; atflault, 101, 108, 100, 110.

Dncka, 78, 164, 166.

Dolnth, Daniel Qreyiolon, training
of,lM.

Dutch, relaUona with Iroqoola, 40.

Du That, Gilbert, Jeouit brother,
15.

IIIB, Maater, arrirea at Que-
bec,10.

EngUih, relationa with Iroquois,
40 ; at Hudaon Bay, 66, 181 ; fur
trade Iqr, 196 ; at MacUnac, 107 ;
Oreen Bay, 164, 186.
BBkiinoa,88,44.

TTUFIELD, Sam 8., aid aoknowl-

•^ edged, zii.

Fishing, at Sault, 61-66, 05 ; La

Polnte, 07, 68, 71 ; MacUnac, 04-

06; on Graen Bay, 168; at Do

Fere, 165-167.
Fire Nations, name for Iroquois,

48,48.
Florida Indiana, 44, 46.
'' Fortune BUnche,** wrecked near

Tadoussac, n, H.
Fox Indians, 40 ; in Ottawa mi8>

sion, 48; at La Polnte, H ; Al-

loues among, 160, 161, 168.
Frontenac, Louis de Buade, oomte

de, sends JoUet to explore Mis-

236

Index

TOE
iiMippI, Tiii, 188, 185, m, 188.
818.
Fur trad*, fostered bj Fraaeh, 188;
controlled by oomfMuij, 188;
metliodi corrupt Indians, 85, 80,
91 ; evils opposed by Jesuits, 80,
91 ; extent of , 87 ; at Indian Til-
lages, 164; on St. Lawrence, 815;
at Tadoussac, 81, 87 ; Three BIt-
ers, 87« 88; Hudson Bi^^, 188;
with Shawnese, 79; Southern
Indians, 199, 808; Western tribes,
185, 180, 146; on Great Lakes,
48-60; La Sailers operations, 180;
at Chequamegon Bay, 60, 70;
Sault, 166; on Lake Michigan,
884, 885 ; Qreen Bay, 156, 164 ; at
De Pere, 811, 818 ; on Fox Biver,
157, 160; Wolf Biver, 161; ai
Prairie du Ghien, 190 ; CJhicago,
807,806,880.

r^ASAStE, Ben6deBr«hantde,

vJ* at Sault, lSfr-181.

Oamier, Charles, Jesuit mission-
•ty.15.

Oarreao, Leonard, Jesuit mission-
ary, 15.

Oeese (bustards), 78, 164, 819.

Oeorgla Indians, 44.

Oeorgian Bay, Jesuits on, 46 ; Mar-
quette, 49-58; 8ulpitiMM« 160;
Ji^et, 185.
. Goupa, B«n6, Jesuit brother, 15,
87.

Qreen Bay (dCy), AUoues near, 78.

— (water), froquois on, 98 ; Kieo-
let, 147; Alloues, 166-168; Da-
blon,160; Jeliet and Marquette,
146-154; deseribed by BAbhm,
16&-168 ; Sturgeon Bay portage,
809,810.

(Jroseilliers, M6dard Chouart, siear
des, at Ohequamegoa Bay, 69,
70 ; at Point Keweenaw, 100 ; on
Mississippi, 189.

Oulf of Mmdco, early knowledge

of, Tiii, 61.
— of St LawTMoe, 84.

HUDSOK Bay,BBkimasoD,44;
Algonkfais, 40; Fk«nch, 45,
65,188.

Huron country, Jesuits in, 88.

~ Indians, described, 48, 45 ; raided
by Iroquois, 48, 80, 54, 6»-71, 84-
99 ; on Lake Superior, 48, 51, 54,
68, 71, 78, 74 ; Jesuits among, 46,
55; Marquette among, Tiii, 75,
108-186 ; at Mackinac, 9»^, 168,
105, 111-121, 148; Drttillettes
among, 108.

ILLINOIS, Iroquois in. 48, 98.
Illinois Indians, 40; French
trade with, 98; in Ottawa mis-
sion, 48; at La Points, n, 7«-81,
184. 806; Alloues among, 189;
Marquette, ix, 195, 196, 199, 800,
806, 807, 815, 817-888.

Indians, description of tribes, 88-
46 ; origin of Tillage sites, 168,
164; Unguages difficult, 8S-80,
87 ; superstitions, 160, 161 ; sua
worship, 75, 771; medldae men,
88, 76, 108, 108, 111 ; sensitiTeness,
88; oratory, 188, 188; fishing
methods, 61-60, 67, 68, H, 9i-96,
168, I6tm67 ; mine oopper» 64-87;
not as pictured by Oeeper, 48 ;
Tillage life. 111, 118; taitlmately
known by Jesuits, 85; mission-
ary methods, 8S-87, 86, 111, 118.
See also Jesuits, fur trade, and
the ssTeral tribes.

Iroquois Indians, described, 89, 41-

48, 45 ; capture French, 81 ; at-
tack Quebec, 81, 88; p r o p osed
French-English league agataut,
108; raid Hurons, 46, 50, 51, 64,
6»-71, 91-98; control Lake Brie,

49, 50; raid Weilira tribes* 48,

237

Father Marquette

I8L
M, 105, 179; |iiiBlfllie<l hy Weneh,
48 ; JmaUm mnxmg, 43, 48, 4«, 74 ;
At Mifilrtnac. 98 ; meet La Salle,
198; at buiial of Marquette, 289.
UeBojale, copper minei on, 84-67.

JACKKR, father Edward, die-
oorers Marquette's bones, 880.

Jaoqnes, Marquette's ^royageur,
818, 881, 888-887.

Jesuits, military character of or-
der, 17, 66 ; dassillcationof mis-
sions, 46, 47; extent of labors,
46, 184 ; period of success in New
France, Tii; missionaiy meth-
ods, 88^, 89, 118, 168; house at
Quebec, 88,84-86, 187, 188 ; Three
Rtrers mission, 87-87, 108 ; Ottar
wa mission, 87, 47-144, 166, 160,
888 ; at St. Ignaoe, 98-97 ; at De
Pere, 109, 117, 166-169, 210-^8;
at St Mark, 168; seek copper
mines, 84-«7 ; hated by La Salle,
184 ; astronomical instrument
found, 166 ; Iroquois mission, 42,
48 ; among Southern tribes, 44 ;
relations with Sioux, 44 ; diffi-
culty of locating sites, 104, 167 ;
Journal, 80 ; Relations, 18 ; new
edition of Relations, xi,xli. See
also the several missions and
missionaries.

Jogues, Isaac, Jesuit missionary,
18, 87, 46, 64.

Joliet, Louis, youth of, 122, 128;
training of, 128-126; atSault,124,
126 ; obtahis knowledge of Missis-
sippi, 128 ; meets La Salle, 128,
128 ; awakens interest in Missis-
sippi, 190-192 ; chosen by Talon,
182; despatched by Frontenac,
188-187; at Mackhmc, 187-144;
leaves Mackinac, 14^145; voy-
age to De Pere, 146-166, 206 ; at
De Pere, 166, 166, 166-171, 211-217 ;
on Fox River, 170-176 ; among

238

Mascoutens, 160, 175-184 ; on Wis-
consin River, 184-189 ; discovery
of Mississippi, viii, 66, 70, 169-191,
288, 288 ; descent of Mississippi,
190-206 ; return to De Fere, 206-
212 ; loss of his records, ix, 212-
216 ; his map, 186, 206, 812, 218,
216 ; closing years, 215 ; place in
history, 282, 288.

KANSAS Indians, 45.
Karankawan Indians, 46.

Kaskaskia (111.), Indian town of,
807, 8ia

Keweenaw Point, portage path,
lOO;; Iroquois at, 66 ; M6nard, 54,
69.

Kickapoo Indians, at La Pointe,
71 ; on Fox River,V179, 180.

Eimberly (Wis.), 171.

Kiowan Indians, 45.

Kiskakon Indians, remove Mar-
quette's remains, 228-280.

LABRADOR, 21; Eskimos in,
44 ; Jesuits, 184.

La Chine rapids, Jolietshipwrecked
at, ix, 218, 214.

Lake Erie, discovered, 60; con-
troUed by Iroquois, 41. 49, 50,
129 ; Sulpitians on, 129.

~ Huron, 61; discovered, 60; at
Mackinac, 98, 94, 114, 116 ; tribes
on, 04 ; Champlaln on, 126 ; for
trade, 49 ; Marquette, 49-58, 105 ;
Jesuits, vii ; Sulpitians, 129, 180 ;
Ottawas return to, 92, 96 ; Joliet
on, 185.

— Michigan, discovered, 60; at
Mackinac, 98, 94, 109, 114, 115;
Chicago portage, 206-208 ; Stur-
geon Bay portage, 209, 210, 218 ;
tribes west of, 156 ; Joliet and
Marquette on, ix, 145, 207, 210 ;
Marquette, x, 218, 219, 224-227 ;
funeral cortdge, 826, 229.

Index

LAK
Lake NIpJMiiiff, MMquetto <m, 62 ;

Joliet, 186.

— Ontario, dtocoTered, 60; Iro-
quois on, 41 ; Joliet, 198.

— Pepin, HnronB on, 68.

— Puckawa, 176.

— St. John, fur tr^de on, 21.

— Simcoe, Jesuits on, 46.

— Superior, discovered, 60 ; limit
of French influence, 28; outlet
described, 61, 101, 114, 116 ; tribes
on, 64 ; copper mines, 84-87, 124,
125, 177 ; Point Keweenaw, 100 ;
Nicolet near, 81 ; Radisson and
Groseilliers on, 60, 70 ; Iroquois,
68 ; M6nard, 54, 69 ; Marquette,
Till, 68, 98-101 ; Dablon, 60, 127;
Dablon's map, 127 ; Jesuits on,
45, 66; DrtUllettes, 102; Joliet,
124, 126, 128; abandoned by
French, 87-09. See also La
Pointe.

— Winnebago, Marquette and Jo-
liet on, 170, 17^175.

— Winnepeg, early French on, 82.
Lalemant, Charles, Jesuit mission-
ary, 15.

—, Gabriel, Jesuit missionary, 15.

— , Jerome, Jesuit missionary, 15.

Laon (France), history, 1-5 ; seat
of Marquette family, vii, 5-10 ;
birthplace of missionary, 80, 72,
110,122,220,281.

La Pointe (Chequamegon Bay),
described, 67; origin of name,
70, 71 ; tribal resort, 67-60, 164 ;
Hurons flee to, 60 ; Radisson and
GroeeiUiers at, 69, 70; Alloues,
70-72, 74, 75, 77, 109 ; Marquette,
▼ili, 72-99, 109, 117, 124, 126, 180,
184, 188, 166, 206 ; abandoned, 87-
100.

La Salle, Jean Baptiste de, fore-
father of Marquette, 7, 8.

— , Rend Robert CayeUer, sieur de,
training of, 124 ; hates Jesuits,

MAR

184 ; on Mississippi, 126, 128, 129,
180 ; meets Joliet, 128, 129 ; on
Ohio, 128, 129 ; on St. Josephs,
225.

La Salle JRose de, mother of Father
Marquette, 7, 8.

Laval de Montmorency, Mgr. Fran-
cois de, bishop of New France,
185.

Le Bofime, Louis, Jesuit brother,
60.

Le Jeune, Paul, Jesuit missionary,
15.

Le Mercier, Francois, Jesuit supe-
rior, 26, 48, 56, 58, 60, 78, 84, 86.

Little Rapids (Wis.), 171.

Louisiana Indians, 45, 46.

Louisrille (Ky.), La Salle at, 129.

Ludlngton (Mich.), Marquette dies
near, z, 226.

MACKINAC (MichiUhnackinac)
Island, distance from Sault,
109; distance from La Pointe,
98 ; seat of Jesuit mission, 98,94 ;
described by Dablon, 87-89, 94-
96 ; easy of defense, 164 ; Hurons
return to, 92-97, 108 ; Marquette
on, 108-116, 205 ; present appear-
ance, 106-108.

— Straits, Hurons on, 68; Mar-
quette at, viii, X, 108-145 ; burial
of Marquette, z ; Marquette's
monument, 229.

Mackinaw City (Mich.), 107, 108.

Maine, Jesuits in, 46, 101, 102.

Manitoulin Islands, seen by Mar-
quette, 51 ; Ottawas return to,
92, 97, 108, 106.

Marameg Indians, 64.

Marquette, Frangoise, sister of
Father Jacques, 7, 8.

— , Jacques, son of Vermand, 5.

— , Father Jacques, ancestry, zi,
5-8 ; birth, vii, 8, 9 ; youth, vii,
9, 10; joins Jesuits, 10, 11 ; teacher

239

Father Marquette

MAR
iB n«aoe,Til, 11-16 ; ImitetM St.
IVaa^oig ZATior, 16« 80 ; airlTsl
In OMiadA, tU, Till, 17-M, «. laS ;
pnpfl of DiiliUettes, 96-t7 ; ao-
<ialrM dz iBdteB dkOeoti, M,
ao ; tribes la time of , 88 ; on Ot-
tavft miHlOB, 48-144 ; ai flmlt,
Till, 48-78, 1Q1<-108, 110, 118 ; La
Poiate, Till, 51, 78-100, 100, 117,
IM, !». 180, 184 ; Xaokinao
■traita, viii, 08, 108-186 ; yearna to
dlMorar WmOmlpsll. 78-80, 88,
100,186,198,187; friead of JoUet,
181, 188 ; Mleoted to aooompaoj
Joilat, 184-186; laatw MaoUaao,
148-146, 168, 906 ; ri^jaga to De
Para, 145-106 ; at Da Para, 18^
186, 16»-171, 811-917; oa Fox
Bhrar, 170-184 ; Wlwsonflin Blvar,
184-180 ; diMoreiT of litwiMippl,
▼lU, 06, 70, 180-101, 989, 988 ; da-
■eaat of MiflilMipiil, lOO^UO ; ra-
tura to De Para, Till, 906-918; 111
ai Da Para, ix, 91»«7 ; writea
Joumal of dlaoorerj, ix, z, 919-
916; hi! map, 185, 800, 919, 915 ;
■acoad miMlon to nUnoia, iz, 917-
988 ; jouraal tliaraof , z, 918-991 ;
death, z, 984-997; Iniriai, z,zi,
90-980 ; place in liiatorj, z, zi,
981-488 ; other hlographiea, zL

■arquatta, Jeaa Bertraad, brother
of Father Jaoqnea, 8.

— , Loolfl (dit Catalan), brother of
Father Jaoqoae, 8.

-,lfarie, liatar of Father Jao-
qnea, 8.

-, Michel, brother of Father Jao-
<|uee, 8.

-, KioohM, father of UOuBt Jao-
qnea, 6,0.

— , FInmaison, in Amaricaa Bero-
Itttion, 6.

— , ▼ermaad, founder of fkadlj, 5.

— familj, poaitlon in Laon, tU;
hieU)t7of,6-8.

flMwa, fooadad by
FTanQoiea Marquetta, 7, 8.

— (Wia.>,17t.

Maacoutaa ladiaaa, 188 ; location
of, 184, 186; Alkmea amonc, 100,
196, 150, 100 ; Dablon, 196, 160 ;
Joliet and Manpiatte, 17&-184 ;
on Lake MJdiigaa, 910.

arr, 16, 94.
M teard, Bea«, Jeoolt miarionary*
15; at Point Keweenaw, 100;
death, 54, 80.

ladiaaa, in Ottawa
, 48 ; AUouea among, 156 ;
Joliet and Maiqoette, 101 ; da-
■cribed bf Marquetta, 148-151.
Miand ladiaaa, Alconkin tribe, 40 ;
hi OtUwa mlHioB, 48; at La
Polnte, 71 ; Alloues among, 150 ;
in Wiecowrtn, 171, 180, 188.
Miohigaa, copper mines, 84-87.
MicbnUmafiMnac, name of region,
.116. See also Maddaacldaad.
Milwaukaa, Marquette Oollega at,

980.
Minneaota, Huroos in, 68, 00.
Indians, 61
ladiaaa, 45.
Mitchigamea ladiaaa, Joliet aad

Mohawk ladiaaa, 41.

Montagnals Indiana, laaguaga
learned 1^ Maiqaetta, 86; Jesuits
among, 48.

Montraal, Jesuits at, 46, 48, 918 ;
Marquette at, 40, 61 ; trade with
the West, 08, 110 ; SulpltlaBs at,
19»-181; discovarr o^ possibla
portrait of Marqnett^ 981 ; St
Mary's Oollega arohitea, 915, 918.

-VTASHTILLB (Tenn.), Algoa-
-L-^ kiiMnear.40.

340

Index

NBV

NeviUe, Arthur C. aid Aclmoirl-
edged, zii.

Newfoundland, 88 ; Indians of, 44 ;
Jesuits in, 45.

New Brunswick, Jesuits in, 46.

New England, tribes of, 40 ; Jesuits
in,lOS.

New France, but slowly settled,
87; developed by Talon, 188;
Frontenac's administration, Tiii ;
Jesuit missions, vii, 11-15, 134 ;
fur trade monopoly, 188 ; ac-
quires Northwest, 110, 125, 188.

New London (Wis.), Allouez near,
161, 168.

New Orleans (La.), settled by
French, 24 ; Jesuits at, 45.

New York (State), Iroquois in, 81,
28, 41-48, 49.

Nicolas, Louis, Jesuit missionary,
at Sault, 59/

Nicolet, Jean, training of, 184 ; at
Green Bay (De Pere), 80, 147,
168 ; among Masooutens, 160, 176.

North (Carolina Indians, 45.

North Dakota Indians, 46.

Northwest passage, sought by
French, 66.

Nouquet Indians, 64.

Nouvel, Henri, at burial of Mar-
quette, 829.

Nova Scotia, Jesuits in, 46.

^ JIBWA Indians, 40 ; at Sault,
48, 53, 54, 68-66 ; raided by
Iroquois, 68 ; at La Pointe, 70.

Oneida Indians, 41.

Onondaga Indians, 41.

Oshkosh (Wis.), Indian yUlage at,
176, 176.

Ottawa Indians, 40 ; trade with Il-
linois, 81; trade with French, 48,
49 ; Jesuits among, 37, 156 ; Me-
nard, 54 ; Allouez, 75 ; Marquet-
te, Tiii, 46-144, 8S8 ; DraiUettes,
108 ; raided by Iroquois, 68, 69,

QUS

71 ; by Sioux, 88-09 ; return to
ManitouUn Island, 98, 108, 108.

Ottawa (IlL), JoUet and Marquette
near, 807.

Outchibou Indians, 64.

Owens Sound (Ont.), 51.

-pARTBIDGES, 819.

-^-^ Patagonians, of Indian race,
89.

Pennsylvania, Iroquois of, 41.

Perrot, Nicolas, training of, 184.

Phips, Sir William, wrecks Joliet's
station, 814.

Pierson, Philippe, Jesuit mission-
ary, at St. Ignaoe, 141-143; at
burial of Marquette, 889, 830.

Pigeons, 78.

Plymouth (Mass.), Pilgrims at, 11.

Point Sable, on Green Bay, 158.

Point St. Ignace, Marquette at. 104,
105, 116-145; Marquette seeks,
883; burial of Marquette, 22S-
230 ; Joliet at, 136-145.

Portage (Wis.), Joliet and Mar-
quette at, 185, 186.

Porteret, Pierre, Marquette^s voya-
geur, 218, 281, 888-887.

Pottawattomie Indians, 40 ; in Ot-
tawa mission, 48 ; at La Pointe,
71 : Allouez among, 109, 156, 157,
175 ; sought by Sulpitians, 189 ;
Marquette among, 818.

Pndrie du Ohlen (Wis.), origin of,
164, 190; Jottet and Marquette
near, 205.

Princeton (Wis.), 176, 184, 186.

Puants, origin of name, 146-148.
See also Winnebago Indians.

QUEBEC, 66, 157, 186, 218-815,
817, 828 ; commerce with
France, 21 ; trade with West, 93,
119, 186, 146; attacked by Iro-
quois, 28 ; in 1666, 28-27 ; arrival
of Marquette, 17-84 ; Jesuits at.

241

Father Marquette

iz, M, 48, 78, 119, 1 16, U8, 128, 197,
198 ; Joliet, 199, 198, 180-186, 914 ;
TAlon, 181, 189.

RADIS80N, Fi«nre BqMrit, at
Chequamegon Bay, 68, 70;

at Point Keweenaw, 100 ; on MIs-

alMtppi, 189 ; journal, 181.
Ra^eoeau, Paul, Jesuit miaiion-

ary, 16.
Raymbault, Charles, Jetuit mis-

rionary, 64.
Red Banks, described, 169.
Bed Wing (Minn.), Hurons near,

68,00.
River Arkansas, visited by JoUet

and Marquette, viil, 901-906.

— Black, Hurons on, 64, 68, 60.

— Calumet, at Chicago, 908.

— Chicago, Joliet and Marquette
on,fac907, 908; Marquette, 919>
991,988.

— Chippewa, 68.

— Des Plaines, JcHkit and Mar-
quette on, 907 ; Marquette, 991.

— Fox, obstructions on, 168, 170-
179 ; Foz-Wisoonsin portage, 186,
186, 906; AUoues on, 79, 16»-
168; Dablon, 16»-161, 166-168,
179-175 ; Joliet and Marquette,
151-165, 170-186, 911.

— French, Marquette on, 40-68 ;
JoUet, 185.

— Grand, 226.

— Illinois, Joliet and Marquette
on, ix, 906, 907; Marquette's
mission on, ix.

— Kalamazoo, 926.

— Mattawan, Marquette on, 49-
59 ; Joliet, 185.

— Menomonee, Ashing at, 168;
AUoues on, 168 ; Joliet and Mar-
quette, 148-151.

— Mississippi, described, 190, 191 ;
Fox- Wisconsin route to, 185, 186 ;
St. Joseph route, 995; tribes

RIV
on, 89, 90; Algonkins, 40, 68;
Iroquois, 98; Hurons, 68, 60;
Southern Indians, 48 ; Sioux, 44,
48, 69 ; feared by Indians, 99 ;
limit of French power, 94 ; men-
tioned in early Jesuit Relations,
78-81, 88 ; early explorations on,
196-198, 139 ; Badisson and 6ro-
seilliers on, 70, 196 ; yearned for
by Marquette, 78-80, 99, 109, 125,
187 ; Talon's interest in, 180-1S2,
187 ; La SaUe, 196, 128, 129, 189 ;
Joliet and Marquette, Tiii, xi,
18, 66, 70, 122, 189-206, 812, 282,
288; Jesuit missions, 12; de-
scribed by Menomonees, 150, 151 ;
by AUoues, 126-128 ; fur trade
on, 126.
River Missouri, seen by Joliet and
Marquette, 106-198.

— Mohawk, Iroquois on, 22, 42,
48,92.

— Muskegon, 225.

— Oconto, fishing at, 163; fur
trade, 164 ; AUoues, 158-162.

— Ohio, tribes on, 81 ; La SaUe,
128, 129 ; seen by Joliet and Mar-
quette, 198.

— Ottawa, why used by early
French, 49, 50, 129 ; Iroquois on,
51 ; Jesuits, 88 ; Marquette, 51,
62 ; Sulpftians, 180 ; JoUet, 186,
218.

— Pdre Marquette, origin of name,
226.

— St. Croix, 68.

— St. Francis, seen by JoUet and
Marquette, 200.

— SI Joseph, fur trade route,
225.

— St. Lawrence, commanded by
Quebec, 22; at Three Rivers,
27 ; Algonkins on, 40, 46 ; Iro-
quois, 41 ; fur trade, 21, 49. 129 ;
mission viUage, 66 ; Marquette,
87, 51, 12 ; JoUet, 128, 180. 214.

242

Index

RIV

BlTer St. Marys, outlet of Lake
Superior, 115; flshing at, 05;
lOofquette on, 51, 63, 103 ; Sulpi-
tians, 180.

~ St. Maurice, at Three EiTers, 87.

— Saguenay, fur trade on, 21 ;
Tadouflsac, 37 ; Jesuits, 46.

— Saskatchewan, Algonkins on,
40.

— Sayannah, Southern Indians on,
48.

=- Tennessee, Southern Indians on,
48.

— Wisconsin, described, 18&-188 ;
Fox- Wisconsin portage, 186, 186,
906 ; Masooutens near, 126 ; Me-
nard lost on, 54 ; Joliet and Mar-
quette on, yiii, 184-189.

— Wolf, Allouez on, 159.

Bocky Mountains, tribes of, 39, 40,
44 ; fur trade to, 87.

JAC Indians, 40 ; in Ottawa mis-
sion, 48 ; at La Pointe, 71 ; at
De Fere, 160 ; on Fox Biyer, 175.

St. Francois Zavier, model for
Marquette, 16, 80, 220.

— mission, 104, 106; founded, 08-97,
108-105 ; Marquette at, 93, 103-145.

St. Lusson, Simon Francois Dau-
mont, sieur de, at Sault, 110, 126,
182.

St. Mark, mission, 162.

Sault de Ste. Marie, distance from
La Pointe, 100 ; from Mackinac,
03, 100 ; described, 61-66 ; fisUng
at, 168 ; Ottawa mission, 48-66,
68, 04, 180 ; Allouez, 56, 60, 60,
118, 156, 150, 162 ; Dablon, 60, 66,
72, 180, 160 ; Marquette, riU, 51,
63-72, 101-103, 118, 180 ; DrtUllet-
tes, 101-103, 109; Nicolas, 66;
Sulpitians, 130 ; St. Lusson, 110,
125. 132.

Seminole Indians, 48.

Seneca Indians, 41.

TON

Shea, John Gihnary, CathoUc his-
torian, xi, 186.

Shawnese Indians, 40; visit HU-
noia,79.

Siouan Indians, described, 80, 44 ;
met tiy Jesuits, 44. See also
Sioux.

Sioux Indians, described, 87, 88 ;
on Missisfdppi, 48 ; hospitality to
Hurons, 69 ; raid Hurons and
Ottawas, Tiii, 64, 68, 69, 81, 82,
87-99 ; feared on Lake Winne-
bago, 172.

Six Nations, name for Iroquois, 42.

Southern (Mas^oki) Indians, de-
scribed, 89, 40, 48-45, 47.

Spaniards, relations with Southern
Indians, 199, 208 ; Marquette ac-
credited to, 135.

Sparks, Jared, biography of Mar-
quette, xi.

Sulpitian missionaries, with La
Salle, 18»-130, 134 ; in Northwest,
128-131.

Stags, 78, 120, 167.

Sturgeon Bay portage, Joliet and
Marquette at, 909, 210; Marquette
at, 218.

rTTADOU

-*- AArlv

^USSAC, described, tl ;
early French outpost, 97 ;

trade with West, 126 ; Jesuits at,

46 ; wreck near, 21.
Talon, Jean Baptlste, interest in

Mississippi, 131, 139; engnges

JoUet, 137.
Teal, 154, 166.
Texas Indians, 46.
Three Rivers, early French out-
post, 27, 28 ; Jesuits at, 46, 108;

Marquette, 96, 128.
Timuquanan Indians, 44, 46.
Tonikan Indians, 45.
Tonkawan Indians, 46.
Tonty (Tonti), Henri de, training

of, 124.

243

Father Marquette

TBS
TreaUAOve, G«taiio, MOlpCor of

]Un|iietteitatae,»L
turkBjM, 78, 198, 219.
Tuaouora IndlMu, join Iroquois,

48.

-r TOHEAN iBdiMM, 44.
U UnnUiio mnM, 88.

VANDKBYBNTKB8 Creek
(Wte.), 70.
VimoDt, BertMlemy, Jeratt mie-

■kmary, 15.
Virginia Iiidiaiw,4&.
Voyecears, 178, 818, 881, 88B-887 ;
•ooompenj JoUet and HerqiMt-
te, 148-144.

WASHBUBN (Wle.), 7D.
Well, Bernard, Jemit mii-
■ionary, 81

WYO

WhUeOsh Bay, llarqnette on, 58,
101.

Wildcats, 180, 107.

Wild rioe (oats), used by Indians,
88, 90 ; how hanreeted, 14»-151 ;
atDePere,165.

Winnebago Indians, Siouan tribe,
44; why called ''Puants,'* 146-
148 ; burial mounds, 158 ; in Ot-
tawa mission, 48, 04 ; Alloues
among, 109, 166, 175.

Wisconsin, copper implements in,
86 ; tribes at La Pointe, 71 ;
BVench trade with, 98 ; gives
Marquette statue to nation, 881.
See also Joliet, llarqnette, La
Pointe, De Pere, and the several
tribes and missions.

— Historical Society, unyeils mon-
ument, 168.

Wyoming Indians, 45.

THB BND

244

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